Farm Machinery Manufacturer Maintains A Mountain of Parts

At New Holland North America Inc., a manufacturer of agricultural equipment, any single part in a mountain of 30,000 different parts in each of five dispersed plants can now be tracked down instantly by going to a single source. On demand, the company can find out the quantity and location of any part.


Reducing the mountain
The mountain has been reduced to a few keystrokes thanks to data collection software that feeds real-time data from the plant floor into an integrated information system. By accessing that system, production supervisors can match supply with demand and keep inventory up to date. The reduction in inventory is projected at 50 percent when measured in days of supply.

"With IBM's Data Collection Solution, we've created an interface that enables workers on the plant floor to report in very simple terms exactly what they've done," says Pat McCarthy, IS account manager for the project.

"As soon as they complete a task within a work order, workers go to a terminal where they scan in bar coded information — what work order, how many good pieces they made, and how much scrap, if any," says McCarthy. "We take that information and populate the J.D. Edwards manufacturing software in real time. When an operation is complete, we can reduce our inventory accordingly and generate the necessary accounting records."

To make the system work, data from the plant floor is fed into the IBM Data Collection (DC) Solution as the real-time, two-way interface to the J.D. Edwards integrated software for the entire manufacturing process. The DC Solution produces and uses bar code information on work orders to automate the reporting of production data. It also produces and uses bar code location tickets and item labels to automate all reporting of inventory movement and supports bar code receiving, among other transactions. The process, which uses both fixed and portable terminals, provides immediate updates to a wide variety of J.D. Edwards applications.


Crafting the solution
The requirements planning, integration, testing and training were performed by the New Holland manufacturing reengineering team, known as the Aurora Team, which is a cross-functional team representing each of the company's five North American locations and all of its major product families. Working with IBM, the team crafted an integrated solution that provides both a custom offering for New Holland and a base application set that can be used by other manufacturers with J.D. Edwards' ERP modules.

An important consideration in the design and implementation of New Holland's reengineered manufacturing system is that the resulting system has many features of a manufacturing execution system (MES), such as data collection, labor management, quality management and performance analysis. The IBM data collection system interfaces with multiple J.D. Edwards modules: Inventory Management, Purchase Order Processing and Shop Floor Control.

For example, a production employee from either a fixed or mobile terminal can execute a simple work order update transaction that can automatically perform each of the following: operation status update; scrap reporting; operation quantity reporting; quantity tolerance check; inventory backflush; work order closeout; and employee, operation and work order costing.


Quick response time
Without the custom integration effort by the Aurora Team, these functions would have required multiple inputs from the plant. This communications system allows for quick response to material or demand changes and positions New Holland for other advanced applications, such as detailed finite scheduling and optimization.

The J.D. Edwards integrated system tracks orders, parts and inventory in four manufacturing facilities located in New Holland, Pa.; Belleville, Pa.; Dublin, Ga.; and Grand Island, Neb.

New Holland reports that the most recent installation at Grand Island went extremely well. The installations also demonstrate the replicability of the system across the full range of farm equipment which the company designs, manufactures and markets: farm tractors, balers, hay and forage equipment, combines, skid-steer loaders and handling equipment.

"Before Data Collection was installed, workers had to input the information on a keyboard and it didn't get into the system until the next day. And if they made a mistake when they input information, this caused problems all along the line," says McCarthy. "Now our supervisory and planning people know what's going on in production as it happens, and they can spot and correct any errors immediately."

ERP Boosts Boeing Winnipeg's Productivity

Managing the workflow of thousands of parts used to assemble an aircraft can be a monumental task. However, an ERP software package tailored to the needs of "highly engineered" manufacturing helps keep Boeing Technology of Canada's Winnipeg plant running smoothly.

"We use CONTROL for managing all stages of the business," said Deidre Keddie, MIS manager at the plant. "If a part's not available or there's any problem with it, everyone suffers. Our shop floor is tied directly into the system, and the staff relies on it all day."

CONTROL was developed by Cincom Systems of Cincinnati. Boeing Winnipeg uses it to manage production of 2,500 fiberglass-composite parts for the Boeing 737, 757, 767, 777 and 747 jet aircraft. Finished products include engine strut fairings, fixed trailing-edge parts, wing to body fairings and thrust-reverser blocker doors.

Keddie said the ERP system gives her precise information to help track the plant's quality targets. Boeing Winnipeg's targets call for a 95 percent success rate in eight areas: inventory accuracy, bill of material accuracy, routing accuracy, on-time delivery to customers, work center cycle time, order cycle time, order aging and meeting the master production schedule.

Keddie says since CONTROL was introduced, "We have reduced our financial administrative support by two-thirds of what it previously was and have reduced the turnaround time on reporting to one-third of what it had been."

Keddie also reports that the company has saved "tens of thousands of dollars (Canadian) per month" in overtime costs. "The availability of information has given us the power to act quickly and keep production flowing smoothly and within budget," she added.

Winnipeg staffers have also praised the system as being much more integrated than other applications they have used. Integration not only facilitates exchange of information between departments in the same organization, it also makes communicating with subcontractors easier. The Winnipeg plant will soon be able to coordinate inventory and shipment information with two subcontractors, one also in Winnipeg and the other in North Dakota.

Fitz and Floyd's EDI Solution for Improved Customer Service

Fitz and Floyd, Dallas, is a leading manufacturer of fine china and giftware. Their products are sold at specialty stores and department stores across the U.S. and internationally. Since 1983, the company has provided china for the West Wing of the White House and, in 1991, was commissioned to create a special tea service for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Its retail customers include JC Penney, Federated Stores, Dayton Hudson, Mervyns and Dillards.

In 1991, JC Penney wanted to send electronic data interchange (EDI) purchase orders. Fitz and Floyd initially opted to use an EDI-to-fax service rather than adopt EDI. EDI purchase orders were sent to JC Penney's value added network (VAN), which routed them to the service bureau. The service bureau then printed and faxed the orders to Fitz and Floyd.

Problems arose when Fitz and Floyd was asked to send invoices to JC Penney. A computerized file of invoices was sent to the service bureau, converted to EDI format, and then transmitted to Penney's VAN.

In some instances, JC Penney did not receive the invoices. Significant time was lost and energy expended before Fitz and Floyd received payment. The assistant credit manager recognized that EDI-to-fax was very costly in terms of poor cash flow and deteriorating customer relations. When she suggested the purchase of EDI translation software, management agreed and gave her responsibility for implementing EDI.

The assistant credit manager had limited computer expertise and wanted translation software that was easy to use. Providers of leading PC translation software products were contacted and, with the assistance of the data processing manager, one month was spent evaluating EDI software.

Fitz and Floyd chose Trading Partner PC, an EDI management system for Windows, because its graphical user interface met its requirement for a "non-technical," simple solution. Trading Partner PC, a product of TSI International Software, Danbury, Conn., is a VAN-independent product.

Within two weeks of receiving the product, Fitz and Floyd had made arrangements with a VAN, loaded the software, and completed testing with two trading partners. No training in Trading Partner PC was required.

Trading Partner PC features include point-and-click access to all EDI functions, unattended operation, support for multiple versions of transaction sets and messages, automatic archiving, automatic table look-ups, and connections to the major value added networks.

Trading Partner PC can be a stand-alone EDI system, an EDI system fully integrated with other Windows applications, or an EDI front-end to applications running on a host.

Fitz and Floyd now has 35 trading partners, 30 of which were added in one year. The company has used Trading Partner PC Kits and the Standards Collection to set up new partners. The system operates in unattended mode with the scheduler "calling" the VANs at 5 a.m. each day. Trading Partner PC task lists are used to print any required documents and send back functional acknowledgments.

The decision to select a VAN-independent translator turned out to be prudent. Several new partners had a relationship with a specific VAN, which they required their suppliers to use. Interconnects were not viewed favorably by these customers. Scripts for all major VANs, including the three VANs now used by Fitz and Floyd, are included with Trading Partner PC.

Fitz and Floyd's implementation of EDI has achieved the desired benefits. The company receives payment sooner, there are no lost documents, and customer relationships are stronger.

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