MRP II helps control costs and improve customer service.

More and more plastics processors are learning to use a type of manufacturing-management software known as MRP II to get a better grip on costs, schedules, and inventories. One processor that has become a believer in MRP II is Plasco, Inc. in Gurnee, Ill. The software has helped this producer of medical devices to cut its inventory by more than 25% and reduce labor requirements by more than 10%, reports controller Fred Todd.

"When we used manual methods to track manufacturing operations, we had difficulty determining exactly how much labor and raw-materials inventory were required to meet our production schedules," Todd recalls. "Now, with MRP II, we know exactly what we need to meet our current workload and we can analyze past jobs with precision. In addition, our ability to forecast delivery dates accurately has helped improve customer relations."

ELIMINATING GUESSWORK

Plasco has about 170 employees and roughly $14 million/yr in sales. It uses a variety of processes to make its products, which consist mostly of vinyl. For example, Plasco extrudes film and then RF seals it to form a bag; the firm also extrudes the tubing that feeds into the bag and injection molds the clamp that shuts off the tube and the hanger that supports the bag. In a typical month, Plasco manufactures 150 different products for more than 100 customers, which makes it very difficult to schedule labor and materials on a manual basis, Todd notes.

In the past, Plasco relied on a foreman's estimate of how long it would take and how many people would be needed to produce a particular order. The company sometimes found that the week's production schedule might require either more or fewer people than Plasco had on staff. The company's molding, extrusion, and sealing departments might have either too much or too little work. And high levels of inventory had to be maintained because there was no accurate method of estimating future requirements. Yet supplies still occasionally ran short.

Another problem with the old system was the difficulty of pinpointing problems [TABULAR DATA OMITTED] within the plant. "We knew we were producing some level of scrap but did not know how much on each product," Todd says. "That meant that problems could be addressed only when they reached the level that they became obvious."

Todd learned of an MRP II package for PCs, called AIMS, that was designed specifically for plastics processing and moldmaking by Martek, Inc. in Elk Grove Village, Ill. It contains several integrated modules that perform every function from quotation and sales orders to purchasing, inventory control, bills of materials, scheduling, job tracking, and accounts payable and receivable. "I called several of the company's plastics-processing customers and heard them say very good things about the product, especially about the materials-management and production-planning aspects that were our main concerns," Todd says. Another reason he chose Martek was that it was willing to customize the software to Plasco's needs - modifying the scheduling and planning modules to track the many different operations used to make a single product.

HIGHLIGHTING PROBLEM AREAS

In early 1992, Plasco started by hooking up the system to one division that accounts for about half the company's workload. (Plasco runs eight injection presses, two extrusion lines, and 50-60 RF sealers.) The system was up and running in a month.

"Prior to installing the system, most of our process information was stored in various people's heads," says Todd. "In order to get the MRP II system up and running, we had to enter processes and procedures for all of our products." That exercise quickly highlighted inefficiencies in Plasco's operations, including situations where much more labor than necessary was being used. "Also, in the past we frequently rotated our people into different jobs. The ability of the system to track efficiency by operation [comparing actual production against standard cycle times] showed that this had a negative impact on efficiency."

Plasco ascertained the methods and times used by the best workers for each operation in order to establish performance standards. That strategy helped cut overall labor expenses by more than 10%, Todd reports.

FLEXIBLE SCHEDULING

Plasco puts in an order for a finished part, and the AIMS program automatically produces orders for all of the sub-components required to make the part. The software also schedules all the people and equipment required. Production operations can be scheduled either forward from the date of order entry or backward from the date that the order is due. "We normally use backward scheduling on all jobs where lead time appears to be sufficient," Todd notes. "In situations where backward scheduling tells us we do not have enough time to meet the delivery date, the system automatically switches to forward scheduling to find out the earliest date that we are able to complete the order." The system also permits assigning priorities to orders so that higher priority orders will move ahead of lower priority orders. This is especially useful when a valued customer calls in with a "hot" job. "We are able to provide customers with much more accurate quotes and delivery schedules," Todd notes with satisfaction. "We have had feedback from our sales people that our ability to meet our schedules nearly every time has helped to build customer relationships."

Todd finds the AIMS system very well suited to tracking molding operations. It tracks each shot of the molding machine and follows the parts that are produced. By tracking the number of shots and resulting parts, as well as scrap amounts manually entered by the operator, the program makes it possible to track the source of each individual piece of scrap.

"In many cases, this feature helped us identify problems that were costing us production," says Todd. "Sometimes this was as simple as telling us that one particular cavity of the mold was producing scrap. The program also keeps track of the total number of cycles run by the mold and thus makes it easy to determine whether there is economic justification for repairing the bad cavity or replacing the entire mold."

Reports provided by the system give precise data on labor requirements for each department. That makes it possible to transfer people from one department to another as required or hire temporary staff when needed.

Plasco's 150 products each have an average of seven different sub-components and each sub-component typically uses an average of four different raw materials. Knowing its raw-materials requirements precisely, thanks to its MRP II system, Plasco has been able to cut inventory by more than 25% and greatly reduce the number of times it runs short of material.

The system also allows Plasco to track every lot produced, including the suppliers of all raw materials used in the product, the production equipment and people involved, and the customers to which it was shipped. This ability is essential to quality control in medical manufacturing, Todd notes, because it makes possible the recall of products if a problem arises and facilitates tracking down the source of the problem.

Plasco invested about $30,000 for the AIMS software, which Todd says paid for itself in the first six months. The system is now monitoring six of seven manufacturing departments, including all the molding and RF-sealing operations. Only the extrusion department is not yet hooked up.

RELATED ARTICLE: Upgraded Software For MRP II & CIM 

Four suppliers recently announced new versions of products for shop-floor monitoring and production management:

* IQ Management Systems of Ontario, Calif., has gone graphical in the latest version of its MRP II package, IQ Genesis Version 2.8. Replacing the older text-based interface, the new "Global Vision Scheduling" feature presents graphic scheduling representation of all manufacturing cells simultaneously and in real time. For example, cells running late are portrayed in red, while green indicates on-time performance. This single screen may also be used to examine materials consumption of each cell. From this global perspective, the system can zoom in on more detailed information about any given cell.

* Data Technical Research (DTR) in Jacksonville, Fla., has come up with a mold-estimating module as part of the 150 enhancements found in the new version 6.6 of its Manufacturing Manager software. This tooling cost estimator takes revisions into account and can amortize tooling costs and track operating hours or numbers of parts for maintenance purposes. The tooling module, which may soon sell as a stand-alone product, costs $5000.

* EPOS Corp. of Auburn, Ala., was slated to release last month a new version 3.0 of its real-time production and process monitoring system. It will have a new database manager and enhanced statistical analysis functions.

* Syscon-PlantStar, South Bend, Ind., has a new version of its Windows-based Focus-2000 software for production and process monitoring. The latest upgrade gives users more options - including voice output, material usage/lot tracking, and simplified integration with third-party MRP II systems. Focus-2000 has also added user-customized fields to identify specific job or process characteristics.