Menu

macroseam / Manufacturing

Process optimisation for manufacturing companies.

In manufacturing the plan and the shop floor drift apart: the schedule says one thing, the machines and the people do another. macroseam develops and optimises the processes between planning, production, quality and dispatch for mid-size and large manufacturers.

Fig. 01 / Plan and shop floor

The schedule says one thing. The floor does another.

Every block is a job. The plan keeps its slots; the real work slides out of them until someone replans by hand.

Macro processes in manufacturing

One line, six stations.

  1. Station 01

    Order to delivery

    From a customer order to a shipped product.

  2. Station 02

    Production planning and scheduling

    Deciding what runs on which line, and when.

  3. Station 03

    Procurement and materials

    Getting the right material to the right machine in time.

  4. Station 04

    Quality management

    Checks, deviations and corrective actions.

  5. Station 05

    Maintenance

    Planned service and unplanned stops.

  6. Station 06

    Shipping and dispatch

    From finished goods to a loaded truck.

Fine processes in manufacturing

The small print of every shift.

Spec sheet / Fine processes

Repeated many times a day

  1. F-01Releasing a production order
  2. F-02Reporting quantities and scrap at a machine
  3. F-03A changeover between two products
  4. F-04Recording a quality check
  5. F-05Booking material in and out
  6. F-06Raising a maintenance request

The seams

Where manufacturing processes come apart.

Seam 01

Sales to planning

Delivery dates are promised without seeing real capacity.

Seam 02

Planning to shop floor

The schedule is printed in the morning and out of date by noon.

Seam 03

Machine to system

Output is written on paper and typed in at the end of the shift.

Seam 04

Production to dispatch

Finished goods wait because shipping learns about them late.

The signs

How to tell the processes have drifted.

Tick the ones you recognise

Sounds familiar? That is where we start.

Start a conversation

Questions

What manufacturers ask.

What is process optimisation in manufacturing?

It is shortening the path from customer order to shipped product by removing waiting, rework and retyping between planning, production, quality and dispatch.

Is process optimisation the same as lean manufacturing?

They overlap. Lean focuses on waste on the shop floor. Process optimisation, as macroseam uses the term, also covers the office processes and systems around production and the handoffs between them.

Our ERP does not match how we actually produce. What then?

That mismatch is a seam. First the real process is mapped. Then it becomes clear whether the system should be configured differently, connected to other tools or replaced.

NextE-commerce