Huf North America, a global leader in the production of mechanical and electronic key systems, lock sets, steering locks, and remote control systems for the automotive industry, has gone live with phase 2 of their Crossroads RMC data collection implementation. This go-live included Report Orders Complete, Labor Reporting, Material Issue, Inventory Transfers, barcode label modifications, as well as custom applications for their Paint / Polishing operations. This go-live was paired with the expansion of Huf’s Plastic Injection Molding and Paint Facility in Greeneville, TN. The next phase of this project will include the extension of the Crossroads RMC solution into Huf’s facility in Mexico.

1. Most commonly Engineering is involved in writing the rules, creating the bills and routings.
2. Sales or Customer Service determines the questions and the order they are asked in.
3. Sales or Customer Service determines the rules for the pricing.
4. Sales, or Customer Service, and Engineering work together in determining the part number, description and text.

What are the steps?

1. You must start by defining the features and options (questions and answers) and the order in which these are asked. We work this out first using sticky notes and large easel paper. Normally during the process we find that we want to move these questions around. Setting them down on paper makes the process of getting the data into Baan much more efficient. We also then have a record of what decisions were made prior to entering the data. This is normally a joint effort of Engineering and Sales. This is required and must be the first step.
2. Constraints for features and options. These are the rules for determining what questions are asked and which options are allowed. This is generally done by Engineering or whoever is responsible for the configurator. This is required.
3. Generic Bill of Material. All possible bill options are entered here and constraints are written to determine which options are selected based on the answers to the questions. This is generally done by Engineering or whoever is responsible for the configurator. This is a required step.
4. Generic Routing. Similar to the bill of material, but used for generation of the routing steps. This is generally done by Engineering or whoever is responsible for the configurator. This is optional.
5. Generic Item Data. This consists of creating custom item numbers, descriptions, text, material, size or standard fields in the custom item master. This is generally done by Engineering or whoever is responsible for the configurator though Sales may have some involvement. This is optional.
6. Generic Pricing. This is used to calculate the selling price based on the answers to the questions. This is normally a responsibility of Sales or whoever determines the pricing. This group is also trained on writing the constraints for this section only. This is optional.

Make to Order? No problem if you use the Configuration Management System. This LX product allows you to define and configure a make to order product during Customer Order Entry. Basically, you have the option to create different products under the same common product item. You will get two completely different common end items that are configured from the same common parent.

The customer orders are planned and turned into shop orders for each end item with all the associated components. With an MES solution in place, the shop order side is easy to schedule and allows you to manage the shop floor.