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Anthony Etzel

Crossroads MES – The Shining Star of Hoffmaster’s Move to LX

When Hoffmaster finally flipped the switch on its ERP migration at the end of February, the IT director was nervous. Not only was the paper-goods supplier consolidating a manufacturing site on Infor ERP LX, but it was also replacing an old shop floor reporting system with a new one from Crossroads RMC. There was a lot that could go wrong for the IBM i shop.

"When we weighed all of our products, Crossroads RMC pretty much convinced us their product was plug and play and their integration back to LX was solid as a rock, and they were right..." the IT director says.

Click Here to Learn about Hoffmaster’s move to Infor LX and their implementation of the Crossroads MES solution.

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Anthony Etzel

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

  • Are you tracking downtime? Is it done manually, or with some type of automation or application that gathers information in real-time, or is it based upon history?
  • If you are measuring team effectiveness by shift, you know there are significant differences between them. Have you figured out why?

One of our automotive customers was experiencing significant inefficiencies and difficulties with their receiving operations. After analyzing their operation, we discovered a disconnect between how they were tracking their incoming goods and what their ERP system thought was on hand.

This disconnect created time-consuming steps to process incoming material and determine where the material was needed. The manual process slowed production, caused additional staffing needs and hindered their ability to effectively get needed material to the assembly line. They chose to implement our data collection solution to automate the process.

Since implementing the solution, receiving and moving material was quicker, more accurate and efficient. This enabled the addition of another assembly line, increasing production volume – without adding staff.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

I’m not talking “Modus Operandi,” which is a fancy way to say: “what’s your plan to get stuff done”.  I’m talking about Manufacturing Optimization. 

It is all about efficiency, and by that I mean doing more with less. Less labor, less time, less materials, while still delivering a high quality product on time.

The Three Secrets to Improving your MO

1. Identify the key metrics
You need benchmark data so you know what realistic goals are, then track them and publish your performance along with a brief comment from time to time on how things are trending and how you compare with others, particularly your primary competitors. The best thing about this is that it is a system that develops a life of its own.

2. Measure it
Automatically, people start to think about improving things. Then the fun part, stuff begins to improve by itself. Once in place, the system just hums along and the benefits appear, because it has motivated people to think about it, and figure out what they can do to make it better.

3. Communicate it
So if you publish gross profit numbers, explain to people how what they do affects the numbers. Employees tend to start to modify their behavior as a result, and look more critically at whether a given purchase is even necessary.

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