Dramatically Improved Customer Service Through Integrated Operations and Scheduling
Cross-functional collaboration enables breakthrough customer order fulfillment performance
Context and Challenge
Production reliability and inefficiency issues coupled with chronic less-than-lead time customer order changes drive production schedulers to constantly revised and release the daily production schedule
When making changes, schedulers would not consult with Operations supervisors to determine impact of changes limiting feedback from shop floor driving further disruptions and inefficiencies
Production supervisors commonly disregarded product-compatibility sequence and executed the work-plan according to their priorities – this led to significant change-over time and off-spec production
Manually producing, manipulating and maintaining the schedule required up to 12 man hours / day
Approach
Established a “frozen schedule” policy for 24 hours - coached schedulers on impact of schedule changes to raise awareness and drive behavior change
Created and piloted an integrated scheduling system to link and translate information from multiple sources, formats, and users into one version of the truth
Implemented daily meeting to ensure alignment around schedule and production priorities. This lead to a “frozen” schedule up to 48 hours in advance
Defined Roles & Responsibilities around the daily scheduling information cycle. Established a decision hierarchy governing schedule changes and approvals
Measured and reported on root causes of schedule changes as well as schedule adherence to increase awareness of performance and the impact of changes
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