Intelligent Manufacturing € August € 1996 € Vol. 2 € No. 8

Miller SQA Launches QRM Initiative

Miller SQA (Zeeland, Mich.), a manufacturer of office furniture, has launched a Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM) initiative for the planning, scheduling and execution of the company's order fulfillment process. As part of that effort, the company has awarded a $400,000 contract for software and services to SynQuest Inc. (Norcross, Ga.), a supplier of supply chain synchronization software.

Miller SQA is implementing SynQuest software at plants in Holland, Mich., and Rocklin, Calif. The company expects to achieve quicker and more reliable customer response, reducing manufacturing cycle times to enable two-day lead times for a minimum of 25% of customer orders compared to 5% today. The company also expects to maintain its 100% on-time delivery performance while achieving an expected 30% sales growth rate each year. Additionally, Miller SQA is looking to cut costs by significantly reducing its inventory investment while also making more effective use of floor space.

The SynQuest system will enable Miller SQA to synchronize production of its office furniture by providing real-time scheduling and monitoring capabilities, eliminating paper-based job cards. It will be integrated with Miller SQA's existing Symix business system to receive work order demand information. SynQuest software will then dynamically calculate finite capacity schedules for all orders through each routed operation. Its real-time reporting provides continuous feedback to calculate capacity requirements and reschedule operations to account for actual factory floor performance.

By dispatching work sequences to each production center in real-time, the SynQuest software will help Miller SQA better support its fast-paced production environment, enabling quick response to customer changes, schedule changes, and process variation. The system will also enable improved allocation of raw materials by providing an accurate schedule and ensuring delivery of support resources is coordinated with production schedules.

The implementation of supply chain synchronization software "will help us improve cycle times and reduce finished goods inventory through its detailed scheduling of sales order line items," explained Doug Bonzelaar, application development manager at Miller SQA. "We expect to eliminate our daily fire drills of resolving issues where we find a high-priority component is on schedule, only to learn a companion piece at another work center has a completely different schedule."

With Microsoft Windows clients, SynQuest software graphically displays the status of each job to Miller SQA personnel, supporting shop floor operators, as well as management, purchasing and other departments. Shop floor operators also will use SynQuest to determine what jobs to: assemble, input quantities produced, view special instructions, report status exceptions and complete jobs. The software displays problem areas as they occur and notifies the responsible department. SynQuest software operates in a UNIX, client/server environment.

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