TCS Small and Medium Business Solutions
- +911800-209-6030
- SMS "iON" to 56767
- Email Us
|
Customer Speak
UB are very pleased to have iON providing infrastr- ucture,applications and services for our businesses here in India...
Clifford Burrough
United Biscuits, UK
|
Home » Manufacturing
A Manufacturing nervous system
Recording orders, sales and purchases would have little meaning unless they were connected. At the heart of our manufacturing solution lies a production system that ensures that these are in sync. You procure as much as you produce; and produce as much as you are able to sell. The goal is as simple as keeping the lowest inventory.
At iON, we tend to make the complex manufacturing process look simple by connecting the different parts of the operations. The software is organized into planning and execution. Production plan for instance, would tell your operations to expect the right amount of sales, and then initiate the right quantity of procurement. But what happens when the execution slips from what is planned? Vigilant reports and dashboards would alert you in time. Click on the blocks in the Picture to view more details
 A quick foray by UK multinational United Biscuits
Situation
Bottom line: An operational setup from scratch, along with independent IT solution
The IT as a Service way
Build as grow literally
UB’s new state-of-art factory was setup in few months and implementing the one-off ERP within such a short span was risky. A failed ERP could have jeopardized the production when it was yet to be best tuned.
iON started with separate manufacturing system and financial suite which initially ran independently. This helped the manufacturing part to be optimized first. UB achieved a production system that was closely lined up with its orders. The procurement could happen in tandem keeping inventory levels low. Cost intelligence brought in
The tuned manufacturing system is now being connected to the Accounting system, where UB could control the cost using standard costing method. By this way, one can statistically arrive at the cost allocations, and account for its variances. A negative variance would be shown up as expense.
The manufacturing system is posting each inventory movement to the balance sheet with variances to reflect where the processes could be tuned. To Summarize
Situation
Bottom line: A common IT platform with inter-connected departments
The IT as a Service way
Clean the backyard first
While many of the problems stemmed from disconnect with demand, cleaning up internal controls and financials were given priority. This, in turn, gave better visibility of business processes.
Initially, the iON Finance & Accounting solution was rolled out, which proved beneficial in outlining operating sites and defining their Chart of Accounts. Controls then had better sanity. For instance, CFO could tell which site was holding most of the capital – either in inventory or as an un-utilized overhead. Plug in the gaps – only with best practices
Better visibility brought the key rationalization, when some of the operational gaps got apparent. For instance, there were Purchase Orders lying unattended while production was already scheduled.
The Manufacturing solution had several ways to handle this. While some of the processes in Ozone were standard, others were specific to the firm. Accordingly, the best practice in software was designed bringing a procurement plan before the Purchase Order, so that the Production Engineer could keep a close watch on it from his own dashboard. More business
Ozone was undergoing a transformation of distribution model, wherein the distributors were organized in tiers so that demand could be better owned down the channels. This change was happening in phases and proved challenging for IT in the CRM support.
The resultant solution, however, was simple and tuned in a way to happen easily. For instance, a reseller could be promoted as distributors with a drag and drop, which would change his privileges seamlessly. To Summarize
Situation
Bottom line: Highly integrated IT solution with zero maintenance
The IT as a Service way
The “Pay as You Use” contract
Rialto, the sophisticated maker of tooth brushes, was in no mood to brush up its old IT. Having suffered through upgradation and maintenance, it finally decided a revamp.
However, some lessons went deep into their IT strategy –
And, our IT as a service was a natural choice. “Build as You Grow” contract
Having migrated to IT as a Service, Rialto found better ways to plan and prioritize its IT. A typical problem in adopting IT in piecemeal is that the systems are not well connected.
However, with the same vendor opening up its already-connected solutions, integration was a natural follow through. Today, Rialto is using Manufacturing solution integrated with Finance and Accounting system. Payroll and HRMS solutions were also added later. To Summarize
Situation
Bottom line: Need for integrated manufacturing system
The IT as a Service way
Production linked to Demand
While Interpump had its regular customers, the seasonal nature of the auto market led to inventory excess. Hence, Interpump should have set scientific thumb rules for Production.
Ideally, the first step was to develop a sales forecast on historical sales and sales pipeline, which could then be used to plan production. The Production Planning System of our Manufacturing solution scheduled jobs into set of operations. This added Bill of Material (requirement of materials) in the planning process thereby helping to track in advance specific operations such as likely shortage and surplus in inventory in the system Procurement linked to Production
Procurement had two challenges - Procuring at the right time and Quality of raw materials
The Procurement module of the Manufacturing system could trace the production operations, which could then set a minimum and maximum inventory level for the raw materials. The same could then be floated as purchase orders to vendors. However, procurement had to deal with varying quality levels in supplies leading to high rejection levels which in turn affected production. Our Procurement module had inherent quality control processes. The GIN could capture desired specifications and the acceptable range, while the Vendor Rating System kept track of supplier performance. This proved handy while choosing suppliers. To Summarize
Situation
Bottom line: Automated processes without holding any in-house software
The IT as a Service way
Need for integrated ERP
Manik is anticipating rapid growth in business. They need an IT that would grow with their operations with increasing production sites and branches.
With growing high-end offices in India, demand for engineering sophistication in interior design picked up. Manik, operating since 1970, felt the need to digitize its sourcing and assembly processes into an ERP. However, it had a plan to use ERP software without keeping an IT staff internally. How did iON Manufacturing solution help?
Manik is a manufacturer as well as a distributor. Some of its products are also sourced under foreign partnership with a couple of globally known brands. They take orders for standard products and also undertake turnkey projects. Hence, their processes included both planned and custom assemblies, with sophisticated procurement.
Our Manufacturing solution became useful by way of:
In fact, Manik implemented all this without keeping any servers in house. That way IT as a Service proved “future-proof” for it. To Summarize
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Connect with us
Talk to an Expert
Book a Demo
