Improve on time delivery by over 30% and reduce inventory by over 50% by uncovering optimization opportunities hidden deep inside your manufacturing supply chain processes.

Situation

If you’re like other customers we’ve worked with, you’re frustrated. You’re under a lot of pressure to improve manufacturing performance, but you can’t get the insights you need to make those improvements fast enough. One described it like trying to run through a dark room full of furniture: you keep tripping over and crashing into things that you can’t see or fix, but you have to get up and keep moving. You’ve already picked low-hanging fruit, and the expectations for performance just keep going up.

We feel this situation is grossly unfair. Supply chain executives are under a lot of pressure to perform, but they’re hobbled by antiquated and disparate systems.  To drive performance you need to turn on the lights.

The most frustrating thing is that most of these folks have lots of data. In fact they’re buried in it. But most of that data is not usable – it’s not visible, it’s not timely, it lacks context, or it’s in a form that is pretty much useless. They end up relying on a hodge-podge patchwork of spreadsheets, custom applications, paper systems, and disconnected legacy systems.

Driving improvement in this kind of world is really, really hard because you’re always reacting, and you’re always late. You’re reacting because you can’t see problems until they become obvious. And you’re late because it takes too long to get to actionable information. For example, a plant manager shared that anytime he wants to address a problem, someone has to spend hours keying in or copying and pasting data into spreadsheet. And it takes even longer if he wants that data annotated with useful information about the job, the product, and the people involved. Finally, when all that massaging and scrubbing is done he can begin to analyze it to figure out how to fix the problem. This is not a sustainable solution to driving performance improvement.

Impact

If you’re reacting and you’re late, you’re dealing with yesterday’s problems.

The delay compounds the initial problem because expensive sort and rework efforts have to take the whole period into account. Of course that also increases work in process and reduces order-to-cash cycle times. Unplanned downtime impacts schedule adherence, and to compensate, many leaders create a buffer in finished goods inventory, driving up costs. And when defects escape to the customer, they damage trust and confidence in the relationship.

Resolution

Hertzler takes a different approach. We provide a system that captures data immediately across all aspects of the process so that visibility is improved and processes can be analyzed in more detail.

Using this approach, one industrial products client reported these results:

  • 30% improvement in on-time delivery
  • >50% reduction in inventory
  • Cycle time for improvement projects accelerated by over 10%

This person said, “I had these two high-powered and highly compensated engineers – really two of my best people – spending hours scrubbing data and building databases. With GainSeeker, they now spend their time improving the process instead of cleaning data or being a shadow IT department.”

By compiling disparate manufacturing operations and quality data, and turning it into useful, actionable intelligence, our clients report they are able to triage, prioritize, and address issues faster and more reliably. Furthermore, with automated drill down analytics, they are able to diagnose the root cause of problems faster, and uncover hidden opportunities to increase revenue, grow margins, and improve asset performance.