SytelineMaster

Below are some of points that are worth taking, while implementing APS in Syteline.

1. Implementing APS is an all or nothing process.  Partial effort will result in failure.

2. APS requires you to rethink your business process related to promising to customers; ordering materials and releasing work into production.   Sometimes it is difficult to change old mindsets and ways of doing things.

3. APS requires that everyone is on board from management to customer service to planning to buyers to production.   Resistance in any of these areas will result in failure.

4. Setting expectations is vital.  APS is a tool.  It provides extreme visibility.  It also quickly exposes bad data and poor business process.  It does not fix data and it does not fix poor business practice.

5. Allow adequate time to review your existing data model and sufficient time to pilot through the APS process.  Most implementation failures can be attributed to ignoring this step.

6. Data elements: Routings – start with what you have.  A significant amount of benefit can come from existing messy routings.  It is only a small amount of routings that need to be high quality.

7. Data elements: BOM’s – accuracy should be higher for BOMs; but these days that is typically true.

8. Data elements: Work centers – make sure that you understand the WC / Resource Group / Resource model of APS.  Limit the number of constrained (finite Resource Groups / Resources) – typically no more than 30% of resources.  Start with only a single Resource Group on operations.

9. Data elements:   Inventory – must be accurate and must have processes in place to keep it accurate.

10. Data elements:  Past Due Customer Orders, Purchase Orders, Jobs.   Complete or delete old Purchase Orders and Job Orders.  Do a one-time adjustment of Past Due Customer Orders to reflect current delivery reality.

11. Data elements:  Purchase Item Lead Times – review and adjust for accuracy.

12. Don’t wait until you have pristine data or you will never start.  Initiate an ongoing process to keep standards current.  This is NOT a one-time process; but a forever process.  The process of piloting APS with your current data will immediately show you bad data.  This is why is imperative to allow sufficient time in your piloting to review APS results.

13. Determine if you have the ability to negotiate Due Dates with your customers.  This will dictate how useful Get ATP / Get CTP are.  Make promises you can keep.

14. Limit the number of drop-ins Customer Orders.

15. Follow ‘launch control’.  Don’t create Jobs manually.  Don’t release jobs until APS recommends.  The same is true for purchase orders.

16. Don’t ‘second guess’ the plan.

17. Follow the Dispatch Lists.

18. Monitor on a daily basis projected late Customer Orders, projected late job orders, Item Bottlenecks, Resource Bottlenecks in order to anticipate problems.

19. Record labor and material transactions timely and accurately.  Close jobs in a timely manner. 

20. Pilot, pilot, pilot.