CMS Helps Managers Get a Handle on Shop Floor

by Alex Woodie

CMS Manufacturing Systems has updated a set of software tools that help users of its CMS/400 ERP suite get a handle on production trends and come up with ways to run their shop floor more efficiently. The CMS Production Analysis Tool Kit is composed of four PC-based programs that allow shop-floor managers to view historical performance data, to track material use, to create new, alternative production scenarios, and to measure the performance of those new schedules against the goals they have set.

CMS is a small, Toronto, Ontario, based ERP software company that has been coming on strong of late. The company's native OS/400 ERP suite has found a niche among small and midsized manufacturers that can't afford extravagant and lengthy ERP implementations, but that nevertheless require strict cost controls and efficient inventory and production handling in order to eek out a profit in the competitive, low-margin manufacturing industry.

The company's generous software licensing, and its policy of delivering free software upgrades--such as the new Production Analysis Tool Kit or recently introduced Internet functionality--to customers with maintenance agreements, seems to be building a following. CMS is signing new customers when many ERP software companies in the OS/400 space are relying on maintenance fees for a big chunk of their revenues. (CMS counts 90 percent of its revenues from new customer accounts.) And because new CMS/400 implementations mean new iSeries servers, you can count IBM as one of CMS's biggest fans. At the spring 2002 COMMON conference in Nashville, iSeries general manager Buell Duncan presented CMS with an Eagle award, which recognizes outstanding achievements by iSeries international business partners. (For more on the Eagle award, see "ERP Vendor Brings New Customers to iSeries.")

CMS says that the four programs in the Production Analysis Tool Kit--the White Board Scheduler, the Shop Floor Dashboard, the Serial & Lot Tracker, and the Shop Floor History module--provide a collection of easy-to-manipulate drag-and-drop screens for production managers to use on the factory floor. Although the Production Analysis Tool Kit doesn't introduce any information that isn't already on the CMS/400 database, it does present the data in a new way, one that CMS says will make it easier for managers and production schedulers to do their job better.

With efficiency as the name of the game in the midmarket manufacturing space, CMS believes the Production Analysis Tool Kit will be a hit with its users. Here's the lowdown on the toolset's features and capabilities:

• The new White Board Scheduler is an interactive tool designed to help schedulers develop better production schedules. CMS says the rules-based graphical tool allows schedulers see how different production scenarios will affect a shop's material and capacity availability and its capability to meet production and customer delivery goals.
• The new Shop Floor Dashboard compares a company's actual production output against the output that it planned, and it gives managers a real-time view of the exact areas of his shop--either materials, machines, or people--that are underperforming. The graphical tool also lets managers see how future work may be affected by poorly performing resources, CMS says.
• The Serial and Lot Tracker gives managers insight into how inventory is being used by bringing together all pertinent information related to the production or use of a particular lot number or serial number connected to particular containers. CMS says the "cradle to grave" analysis of materials provided by this tool will better equip managers to respond to requests from vendors or customers for information on how materials are created or consumed over time.
• The new Shop Floor History tool is designed to help managers identify material consumption and overall throughput trends. This tool assists managers in the collection and analysis of production information--in summary or in detail--over a period of time defined by the manager.

Brian Angle, CMS's vice president of sales and marketing, says that the visual elements in the Production Analysis Tool Kit are key to allowing production managers to access CMS/400 data in new ways. "CMS/400 has always delivered the information managers need, but with these tools they'll be able to process that information visually," he said. "With the point-and-click navigation capabilities, they'll be able to organize, monitor, analyze, and even experiment with real-time or historical data right on their PC."

The Production Analysis Tool Kit is free to CMS/400 customers with current maintenance agreements. For more information, go to www.cms400.com.

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