• Tommy Thomas
  • Is Your Old Scheduling and Planning Solution Working for You
Is Your Old Scheduling and Planning Solution Working for You
Contributor
Written by
Tommy Thomas
August 2014
Contributor
Written by
Tommy Thomas
August 2014

Every manufacturing business comes to a point where it needs to figure out how to balance all of its operations more effectively than they have been. There’s always a transitional period as your business grows. You need an advanced planning and scheduling scheme in place. Its purpose is to keep up with demands, create increasing profits, avoid downtime, and make sure that it all goes smoothly.

Enbraun's Employee Scheduling Software - eResource Scheduler's Utilisation Report, image by Nancy Cahille

Can Your Current System Keep Up?

One thing that can hold any manufacturing business back is a stubborn adherence to practices and procedures that are no longer relevant to their business. When you started your manufacturing business, you likely took advantage of software and policies that helped you do what you needed to do effectively.

As your business grew, you may have noticed those old polices and software didn’t have the scalability to facilitate your ongoing processes.

  • Downtime – If you have to stop any part of your chain to implement upgrades or train people on new systems.
  • Loss of Profit – If you start to lose customers because your current chain cannot keep up with demand.
  • Delays – You will start to notice delays happening more frequently, which can lead to many of the other listed problems.
  • Non-compliance – When things stop going as planned, then you may start thinking it’s time to cut corners, which can lead to many issues.
  • Failure – Yes, it’s possible for your entire chain to fail due to poor scheduling and planning practices.

Improper management is one of those insidious problems that grow over time, usually without anyone even noticing. It’s imperative that you focus on creating a strategy using tools that can actually help you.

What Your Solution Should Offer

Advanced planning and scheduling are two different things. They are separate institutions that need to work together seamlessly in order for either of them to make a difference.

When looking for a software solution to aid your manufacturing and delivery processes, consider all the things you need it to do.

  • Can it balance orders when inventory is lower than it should?
  • Will using it help you to save more money while also making more money?
  • Can it keep up with the pace or your operations or even help to speed them up?
  • Is it scalable enough to allow for future growth?
  • Can you integrate the new software into your current business management solution?

In the early days of many businesses, it’s okay to use a low-powered solution. But when it’s time to grow, you do your company a disservice by attempting to make a weak system perform beyond the capacity it was designed for. While it may not seem like such an issue at first, you will start to see your chain take on more and more issues.

Is Software the Answer?

No, good software isn’t the answer to all that may plague a business. Your own management style and the diligence of your company’s team makes all the difference. However, consider a software solution that can work alongside your group like another team member. It can go a long way towards making sure that you and your business can overcome or adapt to any new challenges that come your way.

If you notice that your manufacturing software isn’t performing as well as you would like, maybe you should look at what else is out there. Times have changed, and finding advanced planning and scheduling software that can keep up with ever-changing manufacturing is one step towards keeping with the times. See what Waterloo Manufacturing Software and TACTIC can do for you and your business.

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