PACKAGING

Constant innovation is one of the key factors to remaining competitive and on-going research and development to design new and better products is integral to the industry. Your ability to develop new products and modify existing designs and improve time-to-market is critical to remaining competitive and profitable.

SYSPRO provides tools to streamline and track the introduction of new product designs and amendments to existing structures, along with relevant costings.

The Engineering Change Control (ECC) module enables you to apply strict control over your design-to-market processes by providing an integrated rules-based electronic workflow system with complete version control, security and auditable history.
ECC gives you the tools to record and track new and modified product design and process changes, assess the impact of these changes on costs and associated data, and control the changed routing and approval processes. ECC’s queries, audit trail, history, and archive facilities give you quick online access to details of prior product versions, as well as the option of reverting to the production of a previous product version. Also, the facility to attach copies of product design drawings to version and release levels provides access to visual details of revisions.

The Where-used Query facility enables you to identify all items affected by raising an Engineering Change order for all routes identified as being under engineering change control. Also, SYSPRO provides a ‘replace component where-used facility that enables the quick replacement of one item with a valid substitute item, thereby streamlining design changes.

SYSPRO’s ECC, Bill of Materials, Work-in-Progress and Factory Documentation modules enable you to implement controls to ensure that your products are manufactured under consistent processes, to the correct designs and specifications. Single-level, multi-level, co and by-product bills are catered for, and flexible bill definitions accommodate complex component and sub-assembly requirements.

From enabling the identification and tracking of non-value adding activities inherent in your current operational processes to the automation of manual processes, SYSPRO’s powerful functionality provides you with the tools to implement your LEAN initiatives. Its integrated nature and ease-of-use facilitate the effortless extraction of financial and operational information required for Value Stream Mapping (VSM).

SYSPRO’s Inventory module is a synchronised hub providing a consolidated view of all stock locations and those activities that impact inventory optimisation and customer service levels, as well as the end-to-end elements of costs and lead times. Features such as Pareto and obsolescence analysis can assist in identifying those products that are suitable for VSM focus, while SYSPRO modules such as Engineering Change Control, Bills of Material, Work-in-Progress and Factory Scheduling facilitate the evaluation of targets for kaizen programs, such as reduction in design and manufacturing costs, cycle times, queues and setups.

SYSPRO’s robust inspection, serial tracking, and lot traceability functionality help identify and track the source of defects, thereby enabling the implementation of kaizen initiatives towards the principle of ‘Quality at the source’.
The queries and reports in Work in Progress enable you to assess the statuses quickly, inventories and costs associated with work in progress and provide metrics on utilisation, efficiency, scrap and rework. The customer and supplier delivery performance metrics are also provided by the Sales Order and Purchase Order and Inventory Optimization modules.

SYSPRO’s Inventory and Bills of Material modules enable the modelling of the LEAN techniques of batch size and setup reduction on costs, lead time and inventory. SYSPRO’s Factory Scheduling provides graphical tools to assist you in optimising scheduling and sequencing processes, reduce setup and overall lead time, and improve manufacturing flexibility and sale-to-customer flow. SYSPRO’s Inventory and Bills of Material modules, along with the inventory optimisation and production planning features, enable you to refine the pace of production to match sales. Furthermore, features such as sales order/job/purchase-order linking facilitate the electronic implementation of true pull supply- chain processes where appropriate.

Document Flow Manager and SYSPRO e.net Solutions enable you to automate resource and time-intensive processes such as order processing and handle increased volumes from global customers. By providing 24/7 order taking and acknowledgment, they improve lead time and free up staff to perform other value-adding tasks. Furthermore, SYSPRO’s XML-aware solutions enable version-independent integration with best-of-breed shop floor monitoring and control systems.

The system’s sophisticated reporting and analytics tools enable user-defined reports and queries. SYSPRO Workflow Services allows the creation of efficient workflows to implement business rules and standardise business processes. Electronic signatures and automation tools enable the automatic raising of alerts, triggers and events based on user-defined criteria, thereby aiding immediate problem solving and process improvement.

SYSPRO’s flexible integrated features and best-practice focus give you single-point visibility and control, providing support for the implementation of your LEAN initiatives.

While forecasting is, by definition, an inexact science, its purpose is to improve the quality of predictions and thereby enable the fine-tuning of the balance between supply and demand.

In forecasting environments where product ranges and configurations are extensive, bills of material are complex, and raw material and component lead times are long, improved forecast accuracy is essential to minimising inventory holding and obsolescence costs without compromising customer service and brand loyalty.

SYSPRO provides tools to enable you to track and evaluate your forecasts and identify the possible causes of forecast errors. These tools assist you in optimising your forecasts to produce the best possible outcome with minimum forecast error.
The Inventory Optimisation suite of modules enables the entry of manual forecasts and the automatic generation of forecasts via various forecast algorithms, including those that compute for trends, seasonality, and cyclical events. Also, the module provides a competition forecasting method (also known as focus forecasting or the tournament method) which attempts to select the most suitable forecast algorithm based on a selected error measurement and your SYSPRO sales history data. This enables you to compare results to determine which method is the most ideal for any particular item, whether you forecast products at core, revision, release, or warehouse level. A tracking signal is used to indicate when the forecast’s validity might be in doubt; those items with high forecast errors are highlighted and can be reviewed and adjusted as required.

Forecast accuracy depends not only on the regular evaluation of the forecast error but also on the source data’s integrity and nature. In SYSPRO, forecast accuracy is enhanced through the ability to automatically filter and adjust outliers and manually adjust forecast base data for quantitative and qualitative factors. Lost sales can also be included in the demand profile.

Furthermore, SYSPRO’s proxy functionality enables forecasting new products based on the sales history of similar superseded products, useful in industries where product life cycles are short.