Preactor International, the UK’s leading specialist planning and scheduling software company has sponsored a survey carried out by AberdeenGroup to identify best practises in Lean manufacturing.

AberdeenGroup is the leading provider of fact-based research focused on the global technology-driven value chain. Founded in 1988, Aberdeen has established the market leading position as the “voice that matters” when it comes to understanding the measurable results being delivered by technology in business.

Survey Objectives
The survey covered companies in North America, Europe and Asia/Pacific in the Automotive, Aerospace, Industrial Equipment, Metals, Food, Beverages, Hi-Tech and Pharmaceutical sectors. The objective was to measure benefits and find the top 20% ‘Best in Class’ implementers of lean. The most important metrics used to measure benefits were:-

• On time delivery – measures how well demand is connected to execution
• Throughput time improvement – measures how well execution matches schedules
• Reduction in Manufacturing Cycle time – measures improvements in manufacturing process
• Improvement in scrap levels (Quality)

Survey Findings
Among the survey findings the following has been found.

1. A New Generation of Lean professional is emerging, old ideas of IT free implementation of lean using Kanban systems only is being replaced by a focus on specific KPIs such as cost reduction
2. Best in Class manufacturers are twice as likely to be addressing the pressure to reduce costs by adopting lean scheduling software applications and integrating them with ERP
3. This provides supply chain visibility – a tool for empowerment of lean decision makers

Requirements and Recommendations
The key requirements in the report to become ‘Best in Class’ was that decision makers needed to know current state of the production plan or schedule, the current state of execution against the plan, as well as current customer demand and the status of WIP.  This was referred to as ‘actionable data’.

The recommendations in the report included:-

1. Standardize lean scheduling and execution best practises across the organisation based on the findings of a continuous improvement team
2. Maintain the autonomy of decision makers by giving them the visibility to make effective decisions
3. Adopt lean software applications and integrate with ERP
4. Measure OTD, WIP and scrap regularly

Mike Novels, CEO of Preactor International commented on the report. “It’s nice to have an independent company with the reputation of AberdeenGroup confirm what we and our users have been saying for many years. Lower WIP, better on time delivery performance and higher efficiency has at its heart lean scheduling software to empower the planner”.

The report may be downloaded free of charge from AberdeenGoup’s web site.

http://www.aberdeen.com/summary/report/benchmark/3989-RA-Lean-Scheduling.asp