Manufacturing Execution Systems MES

1
Case Study Visibility and Control at Vesta

Headquartered in Franklin, Wisconsin Manufacture
silicone medical tubing, components and devices
since 1973 Low and High volumes of production Two
manufacturing sites with 275 employees Strict FDA
compliance means quality
2
Case Study Visibility and Control at Vesta

250 to 300 SKUs 80 repeat orders with 6 weeks
lead times Repetitive but prefer Work Order
system Order quantities are 10,000 200,000
units Wide variety of process steps.
3

Case Study Visibility and Control at Vesta
Using a Lean approach is the perfect remedy for
a medical product company
4

Case Study Visibility and Control at Vesta
Parts or Molded or Extruded Heat treated and cut
to size Additional secondary operations as
needed Such as de-flash and trim
5
Case Study Visibility and Control at Vesta

Dave Poellmann (CFO) been with Vesta since
2000 Large scale expansion forced
better Inventory Control Supplier
Management Since storage space and warehousing at
a premium
6
Case Study Visibility and Control at Vesta

Also the silicone is highly erratic So accurate
and smooth running schedule is central to
avoiding loss Plants need visibility at all
levels To see how the actual comes to the
projected plan In other words, make sure we
have a realistic production schedule that is tied
to the floor
7
Case Study Visibility and Control at Vesta

Plus Compliance with FDA Regulations - CFR 21
part 11 Recording the who, what, when and where
8
Case Study Visibility and Control at Vesta

Prior to QAD and FACTIVITY I think its fair
to say we didnt control production, it
controlled us. Bottlenecks happen on the floor
and would require constant fire fighting The
responses were educated guess with the effect
unknown on other orders No time or ability to do
what-if scenarios
9
In early 2000 Vesta investigate JDE, SAP, MAPICS
and Fourth Shift but Chose QAD with
FACTIVITY Low Cost and High Integration with
QAD We looked at several high end MES systems
costing many times more but It was clear that
FACTIVITY could do everything we wanted and Could
integrate very tightly with QAD. Easy to install
and easy to use Within a week, people whod
never used a computer before were happily using
the FACTIVITY system

10
Case Study Visibility and Control at Vesta

Benefits realized immediately Real-time
visibility Accuracy made for better
productivity Take the floor information to the
people in the shop And together work through, for
example, production bottlenecks And discover
reasons behind these slow downs.
11
Case Study Visibility and Control at Vesta

Moving from production visibility to PRODUCTION
CONTROL Production schedules were manually
entered into Excel Had data errors Orders
(small) got pushed back continually or lost
12
Case Study Visibility and Control at Vesta

Chose the FACTIVITY APS Advanced Planning and
Scheduling Module Receives information from QAD
(new) and FACTIVITY Realistic build schedule for
each day Horizon of 3 4 weeks Scheduled
monitored against actual production Problems seen
real-time Tight synchronicity between planned and
actual production
13
Case Study- Benefits Visibility and Control at
Vesta

20 - 25 productivity gain Better material
requirements forecasting allows 30 reduction in
raw materials stock WIP down by 25 Lead times
down from 8 weeks to 6 week.
14
Case Study- Benefits Visibility and Control at
Vesta

To be honest I expected a steep learning
curveWhat happened was phenomenalwith in weeks
people who never used a computer before were
happily using the system because the intuitive
way FACTIVITY works.
15
Case Study- Benefits Visibility and Control at
Vesta

• WIP down by 25
• 20 - 25 productivity gain
• Lead times down from 8 weeks to 6 week
• Better material requirements forecasting allows
  30 reduction in raw materials stock