Viking Forge, LLC, is a state-of-the-art, high volume, custom forging company located in northeast Ohio. Viking Forge produces make-to-order parts that not only are forecasted months into the future but also subject to demand fluctuations and customer changes. Especially during the Pandemic, the supply chain has been severely disrupted. Viking needs to provide more accurate promise dates, increase production efficiencies, reduce inventory overhead and have the visibility to expedite orders upon request. The caveat was that they needed to accomplish all of this without increasing user complexity.
Uncertain promise dates caused by fluctuating demand and unforeseen events can only be resolved by a system that factors in factory floor reality such as finite capacity constraints, alternate work centers and maintenance/downtime. Without it, promise dates for both new and existing customers, who may need to change order quantities themselves to react to their own supply chain demands, are not as accurate. In addition, the ERP system ‘front loads’ the buying of material based solely on standard, pre-forecasted demand, and static lead times, resulting in carrying expensive inventory much longer than needed. Finally, there’s no method to translate the MRP and Production Schedule into an easy to understand, accurate, graphical view for the production floor.
Solution: Production Scheduling the Customer Way, Leveraging Existing Data
Roger Koeberle, President of Viking Forge, reached out to User Solutions, of South Lyon MI for help. According to Roger, “User Solutions was able to easily adapt their core production scheduling offering (Resource Manager-DB) to use our existing MRP data. They took our operational standards (setup and cycle times for presses, process lead times, inventory and MRP considerations) and then applied finite capacity constraints plus priorities for customer promise dates in order to create a viable schedule.” Roger continues, “With the correct schedule, RMDB then seamlessly updates our ERP to run MRP, achieving Just in Time materials management. This results in significantly decreased inventory carrying costs.”
Furthermore, we can now display the final schedule in a simple, intuitive, graphical interface using User Solutions’ new EDGE (Enhanced Drag n’ Drop Graphical Environment). EDGE facilitates all the last-minute tweaking that typically reflect real time adjustments via mouse clicks or touch screen moves, just like a visual, intelligent white board. Roger concludes, “With RMDB and EDGE, for the first time we can accurately quote viable promise dates and meet them. It is totally refreshing to work with an organization that is willing to adapt their offerings to fit our needs, rather than the other way around. We have a multi-year, multi-user investment in our ERP system and the tools from User Solutions will allow us to continue using and getting a great return for years to come.”
About US: Since 1991 User Solutions delivers affordable, intuitive, and adaptable production scheduling solutions. Now, Resource Manager-DB with EDGE is the first tool that can be utilized across the full manufacturing spectrum, from small shops with no formal systems in place, all the way to larger firms to complement existing ERP systems. Visit www.UserSolutions.com (800)-321-USER (8737).
SOURCE User Solutions, Inc.
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