[Must-see for the manufacturing industry] Explains the work content, issues, and systems of production management!

One of the essential tasks in the manufacturing industry is production control.

Production management is not only about simply managing production, but it is also a responsible job that affects a company’s performance over a wide range of tasks.

This time, we will explain the work content of production management, the problems in production management, and the system for solving them.

If you are a company that feels problems such as human error and inefficiency in production management, please refer to this article.

What is production control?

Production in the manufacturing industry involves a wide range of operations, including procurement of raw materials, securing equipment for production lines, staffing, and supply of materials. Such production operations are properly controlled based on the production plan.

Production management is the management of a wide range of operations, from production planning to procurement planning, inventory management according to the production schedule, supply to production lines and production activities, and quality control.

Production control workflow

demand forecast

Demand forecasting is the identification and forecasting of the demand for a company’s product in the market before producing a certain product.

Demand forecasting is an important task, as the required production volume changes depending on how much can be sold in the market.

Production planning

A production plan organizes information related to production, such as the amount of materials required for production, the amount of production based on the sales plan, the timing of production, and the production period.

It also includes a production capacity plan that summarizes the materials, personnel, and equipment required for production.

Procurement/Purchase Plan

Materials are required to make products, and materials must be purchased according to the production plan and supplied to the production line.

If there is a shortage of materials, production activities cannot be carried out as planned. In order to avoid such a situation, it is important to formulate a procurement/purchase plan in line with the production plan.

Production execution and control

Start manufacturing work according to the production plan. Rather than simply producing goods, we look at the balance between supply and demand and adjust the amount of production.

In the unlikely event that production does not proceed as planned or sales of products are unexpected, it is necessary to adjust the schedule and increase or decrease inventory.

Therefore, in production management, it is important to maintain a balance, such as controlling according to the production status and sales status.

quality management

After the product is completed, we will conduct quality control of the product. We manage by lot number and production date, and respond to situations where quality is questioned, such as responding to customer complaints.

Issues in production control work

It is difficult to equalize the work load for each production line/department

In order to carry out production activities according to the production plan, it is necessary to level the work load of each production line and department in order to eliminate unfairness between employees and departments.

However, since it is difficult to visualize the load of each production line and each department, it is also difficult to level the load.

There is a risk of omissions or incorrect orders

There is always the risk of materials not being arranged or incorrect orders being placed due to human error. For this reason, there are supervisor approval and second-party confirmation, but such approval and confirmation work takes a lot of time and effort.

Eliminate manufacturing waste

Defective products result in wasted production. By creating waste in manufacturing, not only the amount of cost but also the amount of “cost + selling price” will be lost due to missed sales opportunities.

Defect rate management (control for evaluating the process using the ratio and ratio of the number of defective products to the number of inspections) is used to eliminate waste in manufacturing, but it is difficult to identify the cause of waste. I have.

Production and procurement plans do not work

If there is an error in the data of the business plan or sales plan that is referenced when creating the production plan or procurement plan, the production plan/procurement plan will not work.

Therefore, an environment in which reliable data can always be referenced is required.

Improve work efficiency and reduce mistakes with a production management system

In the above, we have listed the challenges in production management operations.

The introduction of a production management system is one way to solve problems in production management operations, improve the efficiency of production management operations, and reduce mistakes .

A production management system is a system that uses IT to facilitate production management tasks such as demand forecasting, production planning, management of whether production is progressing according to plan, and control of production according to the situation.

At production sites, a wide range of operations, from inspection to manufacturing, sales, and delivery, are intricately intertwined, but since these processes are connected as a single supply chain, it is important to centrally manage information in each process.

The production management system centrally manages information on the systems and business processes used in each process, making it possible to streamline production management operations and reduce conventional human errors.

Business benefits of introducing a production management system

Shorter delivery times

The production management system can reduce the omissions in arranging materials and erroneous orders. By optimizing the timing of material procurement, delivery times can be shortened.

Work load leveling

In the past, when the number of production processes increased in large-scale production plants, it was difficult to fully grasp the workload of each process, resulting in a biased workload.

With the introduction of a production management system, the unbalanced work load can be leveled by centrally managing and sharing information on each process.

Improving the accuracy of production planning

You can create a production plan that takes production capacity into account according to the sales plan and demand forecast of the production management system.

Prevent surpluses and shortages in production

By introducing a production management system, it is possible to take account of more accurate demand forecasts and production capacity, thus preventing production surpluses and shortages.

Some production control systems can visualize inventory status in real time.

[To avoid failure] Points for selecting a production control system

Compatibility with your own production format

There are four main types of production methods:

Production methods differ from company to company. When introducing a production management system, let’s introduce a system that fits your company’s production method and a system that can flexibly respond to any production method.

Adaptability to company size and industry

It is important to check the fit with the size of your company.

For example, SMEs cannot spend a lot on production management systems. Therefore, choose a system that can reduce installation costs.

In addition, there are production management systems suitable for each industry, such as the food manufacturing industry, the metal product manufacturing industry, and the machine product manufacturing industry, so be sure to check them before introducing them.

Does it reflect the opinions of the production site?

The production control system is generally selected by the person in charge of the information system department. However, if the information system department does not understand the situation of the production site, the introduction of the production control system will not be effective.

Since the production management system is used at the production site, it is important for the information system department to communicate appropriately with the production site.

5 recommended production control systems!

[Available for various production forms] Cloud2Mfg

This product covers the areas of sales, production, procurement, and inventory management.
We respond to all the needs of manufacturers such as production in anticipation / production to order / production planning / MRP creation / cost accounting.

feature

• Available anywhere with an internet connection
• Supports multiple languages ​​and currencies
• User-customizable to meet your unique requirements
• Significantly reduce initial costs due to subscription model

price

inquiry

Form of provision

Cloud

Company scale

regardless of company size

Presence or absence of trial

can be

[For small and medium-sized manufacturers] SmartFactoryNavi

“SmartFactoryNavi” is a system that helps improve factory management.
The introduction cost is low, and anyone can easily operate it without specialized staff.

feature

• Since it is a SaaS type system, it can be installed immediately without the need to build your own server or network.
• Anyone can easily manage the process with barcodes
• Low usage fee starting from 20,000 yen per month

price

inquiry

Form of provision

Cloud

Company scale

Small and medium-sized enterprises

Presence or absence of trial

can be

[For SMEs] PT-SaaS

“PT – SaaS ” is a production management system for small and medium enterprises.
It is easy to use for small and medium-sized manufacturers because of its low price, function selection, operation management unnecessary, work efficiency improvement, and field-oriented PT-SaaS.

feature

• You can select and use the functions you need
• Ready to use without your own server
• Order data can be automatically received and registered by utilizing the EDI function, etc., improving work efficiency

price

inquiry

Form of provision

Cloud

Company scale

Small and medium-sized enterprises

Presence or absence of trial

can be

[For individual build-to-order production and high-mix low-volume production] rBOM V3

With “rBOM V3”, you can visualize the information of a company’s sales, design, purchasing, manufacturing, and accounting departments in real time.

feature

• Specialized in individual order production with different specifications for each order
• Real-time visualization of information from each department facilitates information sharing between departments
• Ideal for industries where many changes occur from design, and individual packages such as PDM and ERP do not need to be introduced, so costs can be reduced.

price

inquiry

Form of provision

on-premises

Company scale

Large companies/SMEs

Presence or absence of trial

not clear

[Available for various production forms] EXPLANNER/J

“EXPLANNNER/J” is a production management system for small and medium-sized enterprises that supports various production formats.

feature

• It can support various production forms such as made-to-order production and repetitive production, and can centrally manage information.
• Strong support for overseas expansion of Japanese companies with global support functions
• Realization of a system that is resistant to change by providing “package + development framework”
• We provide know-how corresponding to various industries and operations based on a wealth of implementation results.

price

From 3.5 million yen (minimum price)

Form of provision

• package
• Cloud

Company scale

Small and medium-sized enterprises

Presence or absence of trial

not clear

summary

This time, I explained the production management system that solves the problems of production management work and business issues.

If you are facing problems such as human error and production inefficiency in production management, how about introducing a production management system?