ERP Enters the Cleaning Room
One steel casting job shop has expanded its ERP system to the cleaning room in an effort to increase traceability and improve on-time delivery. DANIEL WILE, SOUTHERN CAST PRODUCTS INC., MERIDIAN, MISSISSIPPI
S
outhern Cast Products Inc. (SCP), Meridian, Miss., uses an enterprise resource planning (ERP)
software system to help with schedul- ing tasks in its molding and melting departments. Tis system is in place to help the steel casting facility maxi- mize efficiency when dealing with constraints in both departments. For molding, proper scheduling can boost the total number of molds produced per day on SCP’s three nobake mold- ing lines. For melting, the casting facility can use ERP to balance three constraints: • All products in a heat must be the same alloy.
• The total pour weight of all prod- ucts in a heat must be as close as possible to but not greater than the furnace container capacity.
• Heats per day fits management requirements. SCP employees build a daily sched-
ule to fill those constraints and publish it in paper form throughout the plant
for execution. Te next day, SCP assesses whether the planned num- ber of heats were poured. With this feedback system, the company knows within a day whether it is on pace with the planned production level. Te strategy—building the schedule—is handled by individuals in contact with customers, and the execution is the objective of the shop. Recently, SCP began exploring the
possibility of introducing ERP to the cleaning room, which did not have a strategic solution for increasing effi- ciency. After shakeout, the goal is to get parts out as quickly as possible, but employees don’t actually know if they are on pace for on-time shipment until castings arrive at inspection, which is the last operation.
Order in the Cleaning Room For large-quantity orders, employ-
ees have a difficult time verifying order count prior to a final count, which is made during packaging for shipment. Often, at that point, it is
too late to make up for any short quantities. SCP lacks a good feed- back loop that allows for daily assess- ment regarding meeting its delivery commitments. As a steel casting job shop, SCP pours many types of alloys with many different processing steps. When pouring an uncommon alloy, the metalcaster may reach into its order book to find enough orders of that alloy to fill the furnace. Consequently, those castings with due dates far into the future may enter the cleaning room before more urgent castings from subsequent heats. Additionally, the route that castings take through the cleaning room depends on alloy type. SCP does not work in a first- in-first-out system in the cleaning room, as lean manufacturing prin- ciples might suggest. Currently, strategy and execution
are taking place on the shop floor. SCP depends highly on some key vet- eran employees for directing the flow of work. Te absence of quantifiable
Fig 1. Castings can take a variety of process routings at SCP. January 2016 MODERN CASTING | 39
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