August 2012, the company presented the system to supervi- sors and asked them to form teams of who would be respon- sible for performing a physical inventory and data input. After training sessions, the plant stopped activities from
a Friday morning through Monday morning to conduct the inventory. When the stock take was complete, POK found a huge
setback. When castings reach the machining stage, many can be turned into a variety of part numbers. Although the new ERP program had the ability of tracking serial num- bers, the supplier had never had a customer tracking 100% of its production through unique IDs nor had it converted one part (casting part number) to several others (machined part numbers).
POK wanted to make sure the system represented what
was truly going on, so customization programming had to be done at a core level of the software. Tis set the timeline to launch back a few months. POK also learned that the concepts of how to allocate
parts to production orders had not been fully understood by everyone, which meant the Work in Progress (WIP) tracking was not reliable. Te main issue was the most advanced serial numbers in
the process had not been put against the most urgent orders. Also, several part numbers did not have open orders. POK could not allocate its data since it had not been input. After serious consideration, the metalcaster decided it was easier to clear all the stock take information and start again rather than fixing the unreliable information already input.
5
Getting Ready to Go Live, Take 2: Involving people so they believed the new ERP system would eventually minimize administration labor was probably the most difficult part of the implementa-
tion. Even though POK has a relatively young (but experi- enced) staff who were comfortable working with complex computer programs, breaking habits was hard. Te basic concepts of how the system worked and the
goals it would help the company reach had not been success- fully communicated to the workers. Te company chose 20 ERP process owners and launched a training week during which the people who were going to be using the ERP pro- gram on a daily basis were taught the advantages of a correct WIP count and order allocation. After the training week, POK was ready to make another
stock take. In February 2013, POK conducted a physical inventory and commissioned teams to input data. As a con- firmation, a route sheet was printed from the ERP program and attached to every single part in process to ensure noth- ing was left out. POK controlled what it defined as most important
processes and instituted obligatory bookings. Tis meant if a serial number had not been recorded as “passed that stage,” the part could not be booked to the next stage. Te stages included pouring, heat treat, NDT inspections, casting fin- ishing, machining reception and finish machined. Te company has discovered that its ERP program users
often seek help on things they should know how to solve on their own. One challenge has been for the project leader to have time to continue the implementation of the system instead of troubleshooting and servicing internal customers. Proper training and user manuals personalized to POK have helped minimize this. Keeping the system up to date is a team effort and must be supervised. It is easy to leave inputting as an activity for the end of
the day, causing the data to be skewed. POK has launched a pilot trial of shop floor data collection where the operators themselves input data in real time. POK didn’t begin with shop floor data collection from the beginning because it wanted to understand what information was worth having. ERP process owners played a role in identifying such data.
several obstacles. Four computer screens were located in the manufac-
6 34 | MODERN CASTING September 2015
turing cell. Quality plans were created for the products being processed and results were being input by the operators. If a part did not pass the inspection, it would
Shop Floor Data Collection Pilot Run: POK chose a manufacturing cell that processes parts quickly for the pilot run of floor data collec- tion. The run was successful but came across
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