Features and Benefits

Prevel delivers high performance manufacturing applications powered by the Ancelus DBMS technology.  No other systems compare when it comes to high velocity manufacturing strategies.  No other offering provides the cost reduction oppportunities available from Prevel.  The complete offering includes tracking and traceability, advanced planning and scheduling, capacity planning, cash planning and inventory forecasting.  Prevel also offers business process consulting services to assure full benefit from the data in the ERP system and the fastest time to profit through factory floor synchronization.



Real-time Route, Track & Trace (RT3)

RT3 delivers improvements in planning dynamics and communication. Plan changes are disseminated across the floor instantly.  Every operator is always working on the current highest priority for the factory, not on the obsolete assumptions of yesterday’s plan.

By providing real-time updates on the location and status of every order on the factory floor, planning cycles are able to function with a new level of precision.  As a side benefit we now have a clear and up to the minute picture of the real WIP inventory position.

The business benefits of having an entire organization focused on the best current priority are impressive.  Up to 50% reduction in WIP inventory delivers important cash benefits.  Reducing the amount of wasted effort provides an ongoing efficiency improvement and cost reduction.  Efficiency sapping efforts are eliminated including chasing material, making parts that customers no longer need, or don’t need now.  During the recent economic downturn users of RT3 were able to respond rapidly to the unprecedented drop in order levels, maintaining profitability through the transition.

RT3 has been designed to address the serious gap between the information structure of the ERP system and information demands of the factory floor.  It achieves dramatic results in both job-shop and line based production systems. As the real-time data integration hub of the factory, it delivers on the promise of high velocity manufacturing.

Factory operations are the final frontier of manufacturing automation. It remains an enigma after 40 years of serious attempts to build floor support systems. The core challenge is that the factory floor is a world of rapid and frequent change, often the place that sorts winners and losers.

After three decades of technology development in planning and scheduling, there is an increased recognition that dynamic response is required to concurrently control quality, costs and delivery performance. There is no single driver for the dynamic.  In the final days, weeks and hours before production, customers change orders, material supply is late, receiving counts are wrong, operators don’t show up for work, machines break, emergency orders interrupt the “optimized” plan.  The plan never survives the first contact with the real world.  Nor should it.  You can’t improve efficiency by making things that no one wants.

RT3 is the beginning of a new approach to the factory floor.  The vision for the new factory floor is one where the time domain information architecture adapts on the fly to real-world dynamics.  The starting point is to gainpro-active control of the current status and next action for every order in active production.  This visibility also needs to provide a clear view of the expected outcomes.   The mission is simple: optimize the factory not machines, keep focused on the customer delivery requirements not artificial efficiency, trap potential quality issues instantly, and make a profit. While this sounds simple it has eluded most factories.  The vision of current operating models tends to work against these goals.  Lean manufacturing continues to assume that level loading is the preferred approach – a holdover from its origins before the use of computers.  Computerized planning systems still lean toward optimizing the machines/lines with its guarantee of sub-optimizing the factory.

RT3 takes its view from the threaded network of orders in the factory.  The competition of multiple order threads for shared resources is addressed directly.   In this threaded view of the factory floor RT3 differs dramatically from the transaction oriented view of ERP systems.  While ERP strives for precision in recordkeeping, RT3 focuses on actions and options.  While there is overlap in these views they cannot be merged.

Most of the critical source data in RT3 originates in the typical ERP system.  Sometimes a separate engineering system or CRM system provides key elements.  The frequency and content of these updates  is site specific, but RT3 can accommodate whatever linkage is required, including transaction level XML interfaces.

Unlike the typical shop floor data collection or shop floor control system, RT3 is time-indexed around the order thread (routing) and its integration with material supply, equipment, and personnel.  The unique time based view is a radical departure from the accounting transaction structure of all ERP system.

Data Entry:

Data collection in RT3 is based on a set of screens designed by factory supervisors and operators.  Speed and simplicity are the goals - two clicks to get to any function, then minimize the risk of entry errors through the use of bar code, RFID and select list entry methods.  Typing has been reduced to an absolute minimum.  Any time the status of a group of parts changes (from “running” to “complete” for example), a new bin tag can (or must) be printed and affixed to the bin.  All of these functional processes are easily modified to fit the business processes of a specific factory.

RT3 is as much a feedback system as it is a data collection system.  It provides instant feedback to floor personnel on current status, location and expected dates every order.  It also delivers a continuously updated view of the next few priorities for every machine or operator. A complete part touch history is available at any time.

Routing:

- RT3 route format shows operations sequence and the expected start and end time for each operation at each machine.  Projected-days-late at completion is presented for every order to guide priorities.

- For each machine the current schedule is presented in chronological sequence.

- Schedule changes, new orders, rerouting is disseminated instantly across the entire factory.

- Machine level schedule shows the location and status of the prior operation.

Tracking and Current Status:

- Current status of all parts in the factory.

- Factory dashboard: Current machine status (running, ready to run, setup, wait for inspection, idle) including active and queued order-operations.

- Current WIP inventory (cycle count updated on every active bin of parts twice per shift as production parts are reported).

Traceability:

- Bolwback traceability is the ability to immediately find the source components of a defective part and then trace forward to find the current location of all other parts from that vendor lot.

- Complete touch history of every serial number, bin, lot, order or part number.  Includes timestamp, process, operator and location identity of each transaction.

Recent History (long term history typically remains a function of the ERP system):

- Production output for the day, week , month.

- MRB and scrap by machine, operator, part.

- Listing of all active bins with status

- Complete touch history of any bin(s)

- MRB reports by part, order, defect code, machine, operator

Material and Capacity Planning:

The material planning process of the ERP system is typically retained with the introduction of RT3.  The current lists of released purchase orders and planned purchase orders are imported to RT3 to provide visibility of receiving expectations and production options. This information also supports the inventory forecast and capacity planning processes.  The short term schedule for released orders is either developed in RT3 or is imported from the planning engine of the ERP system.

Once the plan/schedule is developed or revised, it is instantly disseminated across the factory floor in real-time.  All planning in RT3 is displayed to the minute.

- By machine/line in time sequence order

- By order or part number showing the sequence and timing of individual operations.

- Chronological order by operation (for the tool room to stage gages, fixtures, work instructions, etc)

A separate capacity planning model provides a look at total resource requirements over future periods and based on the current status of all work and material in the factory.  The business processes and detail information of this module are tailored to customer specifics.  The goal is periodic update of the capacity plan (typically weekly).  The capacity plan typically covers a rolling 12 months, with special emphasis on the next 90 days.  The capacity plan is based on operation level timing.

Technology:

Client: Firefox browser running on Windows or Linux OS.

Client OS: Linux, Windows (XP or 7 only) or UNIX.

Server: Apache server running on Linux, Windows or UNIX. Ancelus version 3 or higher.