Making Intelligent Decisions with Your Data

Using Excel Report Builder with Dynamics GP

Imagine making an ERP report such as “Inventory Stock Status” available to be viewed and formatted in Excel?  All a user needs to do is open Excel and there is the data refreshed real time.  All this done from the comfort of Excel.

Microsoft Dynamics GP Excel Report Builder is one of a variety of reporting tools that that can make this happen today.  No programming, no configuration – just send the report to excel and format the report to look the way you want to see it.  No fuss no mess.

The Excel Report Builder generates an Excel report with live data connections automatically.  These connections link back to Microsoft Dynamics GP without the user having to configure servers or authentication. If the user has rights to view the report they have rights to format it in Excel. 

So think of the possibilities you can use today.  List of purchase orders needed from the Vicinity MRP or truck routings for delivery by day.  Raw material usage with costs and production schedule data.  All within excel and easy for the user to consume.

So start using Excel as a reporting tool rather than a databases.  You will wished you have found this a long time ago.

If you are currently using Microsoft Dynamics GP contact your reseller or give us a call.  We are always here to help.  If you are new to the Microsoft Dynamics community take a look at what you are missing.  Before no time you will be up and operational wondering how you lived without Microsoft Dynamics. 

Check out this video featuring Vicinity software with Dynamics GP using Excel Report Builder.

Business Intelligence for Beginners

Excel Pivot Tables

By utilizing Business Intelligence (BI), manufacturing operations will have increased visibility, improved efficiency, and most importantly the ability to turn data into actionable information.

So let’s begin by looking at your options for bringing BI into your manufacturing organization.

The most basic way to begin with BI is Excel Pivot Tables. This is a free tool that anyone with Microsoft Office already owns via Excel. Pivot tables are one of Excel's most powerful features. A pivot table allows you to extract the significance from a large, detailed data set.

Excel Pivot Table help manufacturers look at KPIs such as:

• What products are we getting the best yield?
• What products are costing me more or less than it significantly should?
• How much labor do I think I am consuming versus actually consuming?

Manufacturers are looking at exceptions rather than static pieces of data. Production by month, by formula over time is an example.  Trends and outliers can be identified easily.

How can you access data that you did not key into Excel? You can use a data connection  to connect to a Microsoft SQL Server database from a Microsoft Excel file. All you need are rights to read the database and the tables within the database which you probably already have.

So while I don’t encourage using Excel as a replacement for a database it is a terrific tool to analyze data you already own with a tool you already use.  If you need assistance in using Excel Pivot tables to access Vicinity software or Microsoft Dynamics data don’t hesitate to reach out.  Once you have created your first data connection and pivot table you will truly see the power in this starter BI tool.

Here is a quick video example. 

Simple BI with Vicinity and Excel Pivot Tables

Improving Operational Efficiency: Part 4

Labor Resource Planning

Every organization is constrained by the resources available to them. Utilizing those resources effectively is a key to success. 

Manufacturing is constrained by labor, raw material availability and equipment scheduling. The ability to optimize any one of these can make a big difference in helping your company’s bottom line. Labor is often overlooked in the planning process but a key element.

Gaining insight into how much labor is needed to complete a job, enables your scheduler to match labor resources to production requirements efficiently. 

  

Key questions to monitoring labor include: 

• Do have enough people to complete a job in a timely manner? 
• What adjustments need to be made to avoid unnecessary overhead?
• Can I extend, delay or consolidate work to avoid overtime?
• Do I have any upcoming bottlenecks? Can I move jobs from high volume days to level the workload and avoid a conflict that could strain limited resources?
• Can I reduce the cost of Training new workers?
• Can I reduce the complications caused by over staffing a project, such as excessive layers of communication?

Vicinity helps process manufacturers get the most out of their labor resources.  Vicinity records labor standards by formula. By setting a standard requirement Vicinity can calculate how many labor hours will be needed to execute the schedule and identify resource bottlenecks. This allows the scheduler to match the labor force to meet production demand reducing surges and lulls in production time. Bringing the labor requirements into the scheduling process will save your scheduler time and your company money with a very quick return.

Improving Operational Efficiency: Part 3

Tracking Batch Yields 

Measuring yield loss (input vs. output) is critical to improving operational efficiency for formula-based manufacturers.

When process manufacturers calculate and review yield by batch or formula the result is identification of below-normal yields.  Once corrective action is taken the pattern is broken and profits increase.

Increasing batch yields by 1-2% can result in a significant reduction in raw material cost and plant overhead. The results in overall production efficiency and saves money.
As manufacturers we spend a great deal of time analyzing our raw material costs but little time on batch yields.  An increase of 1% yield can be equivalent to 5-10% or more reduction in raw material costs.  So why would a company not monitor this powerful profit lever?

How do I get started?

The process is quite simple.

• Target a formula that has a significant volume.
• Look at the yields by batch for this formula over the pasts 6 months. Do you see a trend? Do you see variation? If either is true you have found a potential target.
• Spend a little time with production and R&D to see if you can identify the source of the variation or change for that formula.
• Watch the batch carefully the next time it is produced. What is causing the change or variation? The answer is probably staring you right in the face.
• Are there other products that share the same characteristics and are of high volume?  You have now found your next candidate.
• Repeat this process for the top 10 selling products. 

Before long your yields will increase and drive higher profits.  All with very little marginal effort.

By utilizing and ERP solution such as Vicinity software with Microsoft Dynamics a manufacturer can easy track and manage yield loss. Vicinity has a standard query that allows a user to view yields by formula/batch for any period of time. This data can be viewed in Vicinity or easily exported to Excel or statistical packages. Additionally,Vicinity has the ability to notify key personnel when a batch is out of a tolerable yield range. Corrective action can be taken immediately.

Using Vicinity, batch yields  can be reviewed by batch or formula through time. This lets process manufacturers identify those formulas requiring more raw material than anticipated to produce finish goods. The savings in raw material costs alone is significant, and the risk of missed shipments is reduced.

Improving Operational Efficiency: Part 2

Scheduling by Formula

A common challenge for process manufacturers is production scheduling. If only the production schedule could group products that use the same formula, manufacturers would gain efficiencies by creating longer runs.

In batch manufacturing multiple finished products can be made from the same formula. A scheduler may make cookies that go in a 50 cookie tin verses a box of 100 cookies.  Both products share the same formula but each have different packaging. The scheduler may have a requirement for tins this week and drums the following week.

What’s a scheduler to do?

When a scheduler has visibility into finished good demand and can view the demand by common formula the scheduler is able to create larger batches by combining demand for multiple container sizes. Creating a larger batch size by scheduling production by formula can increase operational efficiency. Scheduling by formula allows the production team to minimize clean ups and downtime. And machine downtime equals lower operational productivity.

See the Vicinity planning workbench in action.

What Vicinity brings to the table is the ability to see demand out into the future with forecasting and planning tools. Vicinity software gives users the ability to group the production schedule by formula allowing the scheduler the ability to view the production schedule over time so that like items may be grouped together. Many items can be produced from the same batch ticket or production run, if they share the same formula. The result is improved production efficiency and profits.

Improving Operational Efficiency: Part 1

Utilizing visual scheduling to reduce machine downtime.

How well raw material flows through the factory has a direct impact on costs, inventory levels and

reliability and responsiveness to your customers. 

The good news is that you don't need a crystal ball to improve your operational efficiency. 

Having the tools like Vicinity software to leverage production analytics to improve operational effectiveness by reducing machine downtime, changeovers, and cleans is critical.

Every company has limited production resources. Whether you run one, two or three shifts you have a finite amount of time to make your products.

What you do with your production time can directly affect profitability of your company.  

Every minute that your facility is not converting materials to saleable product is lost time that will never be recaptured. Much like a plane – if it takes off with a seat empty it will never get that revenue back.

So how can you make sure you are running to your maximum capacity?

Envision seeing your schedule on a Gantt chart or an outlook calendar.  When you can visualize your production starting and stopping you can easily see the gaps in your schedule.  If a machine is not scheduled it may be underutilized.

In today’s age there is no reason to wade through lengthy reports or lists of production batches.  View it on a calendar and the down times will become obvious.

At Vicinity Manufacturing we allow the user to display the production schedule on a calendar familiar to most users. We use an office look and feel to view, filter and manage the calendar.  Changing the production schedule is as easy as rescheduling an appointment.

Vicinity visual production calendar.

So take a look at how you are doing things today.  Can your production schedule be viewed and edited in a calendar?  You will be amazed at the insight you get.

If you would like to discuss this further feel free to reach out to Vicinity Manufacturing.  We are happy to help.

Best of Breed Software 101

Best of Breed Software

One of the oldest debates in corporate IT is whether to adopt a single vendor application suite or implement best-of-breed packages. CIOs and business users have argued over the years about which approach delivers the ideal balance of user features, time to value, cost management and business benefits.

 As defined by techopedia.com, a best of breed system is "the best system in its referenced niche or category. Although it performs specialized functions better than an integrated system, this type of system is limited by its specialty area.” 

Never before has the case for best of breed applications been more compelling. Cloud computing has made it financially and operationally viable for a company to pick their industry’s best software solution for every business case. Companies no longer have to sacrifice functionality for the sake of integration. You can have your cake and eat it too.

 A great example of a successful best of breed software for a specialized area? Microsoft Dynamics CRM. It manages everything the sales team could possibly want, but isn’t designed to address other functions in a large business, like HR or operations.

Why choose of Best of Breed:

 Diminishes software functionality gaps 

Best of breed ERP software vendors are passionate about their area of expertise, and the companies hire individuals with deep subject matter expertise fueled by this inherent passion. The result is full-featured software that covers the full range of necessary capability in the chosen functional areas. The depth of functionality allows customers who choose best of breed software to use the enhanced capabilities to provide a competitive edge and to ensure maximum efficiency.
In contrast, when software companies spread their resources over the entire spectrum of business applications, including customer relationship management, human resources, financial applications, business analytics and manufacturing and supply chain planning, one or more areas of the application often receives less focus than the others due to lack of expertise, interest or strategic focus. This frequently results in significant gaps in the provided functionality.

Works with the software investment you already have on-site. 

Best of breed software developers know that you are not locked in to using whatever functionality they choose to provide. For this reason, they not only provide more and better functionality than integrated software vendors, but they also design the software in a way that makes it easy to integrate with other applications. This enables their customers to assemble a suite of applications that all work together and that provide the full spectrum of functionality and capabilities necessary to run a business, without settling for lesser solutions in some business areas. Large enterprises may have the budget to upgrade or replace applications frequently whenever their requirements change, but business software represents a significant investment for SMBs. That’s why best of breed ERP software can be a better fit for small to midsize manufacturers, since it works with other business systems such as Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL and Microsoft Dynamics NAV. With best of breed, your investment in existing applications is protected.

 Costs less to get best of breed versus integrated 

You make a substantial investment in your business systems, and you deserve to get the most from every dollar of your investment. Best of breed applications provide more of the necessary functionality for every dollar you invest. Because the best of breed vendor focuses on a single area of the business, it directs all of its resources to ensuring that the functionality is as deep, flexible and efficient as it can be. The team’s expertise and experience in the target area, such as Vicinity’s focus on process manufacturing, ensures that the software reflects best practices without compromise. Unfortunately, with integrated ERP you run into the need to customize the software to compensate for functional gaps and ineffective workarounds that take away your productivity. Maintaining customizations can be expensive, cumbersome and time consuming, especially because they often impact many cross-functional areas within the application.  

Updates are easier 

Software updates include new techniques and best practices, process improvements and support for the most recent regulatory requirements, so it’s vital that your company stays up to date with the newest requirements critical to your business. Updating a best of breed application can be simpler than updating an integrated ERP system; the update only affects a single area of your business, minimizing risk and disruption. In contrast, integrated ERP systems usually require you to update the full suite all at the same time, putting every business process at risk and requiring substantially more resources and planning.

If your company is dynamic in nature and experiences changes in requirements as years go along, your company has limited development resources in house to address gaps in your system functionality and you embrace competition as a way to reduce cost and increase functionality then the best-of-breed might be a better model for you.