Production Planning Plus
Client: G.H. Michell and Sons
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| There's no room for woolly thinking in
organising and scheduling production to meet customer demand |
A fundamental problem which many businesses face is how to maximise
their limited production capacity and meet customers’ deadlines for
orders. G H Michell and Sons, an Adelaide-based company, is no
exception. The company processes greasy raw wool for export and for
further processing in Australia. It is one of Australia's largest
purchasers of wool, buying almost 13 per cent of the nation's wool
clip each year. The company is constantly seeking to improve its
business to remain competitive in a global economy.
Michell's wool production plant in Salisbury already runs 24 hours
a day. So there is no room to increase production except by investing
in new machinery, which the company has recently done. The production
capacity also depends on the mix of different wool products to be
processed each week.
Scheduling Software
CSIRO created scheduling software which
keeps track of the company's production capacities and optimises the
sequence in which orders are produced to ensure shipment deadlines are
met. The scheduler interfaces directly with Michell's databases to use
the most up-to-date information. It generates an optimised weekly
schedule for a six month period. This is used to determine when to
produce each order, when to buy raw wool, what products traders should
sell and the earliest deadlines for new orders.
Tony Turk, Michell's Improvement Group Leader, says that, while it
is early days in evaluating the scheduler, some benefits are already
visible. Using the scheduler, wool traders can now obtain information
about production much sooner and so are able to make more reliable,
more timely decisions.
Next, CSIRO will provide software to assist with detailed
shift-by-shift scheduling. This will allow Michell's production
planning and control manager to anticipate and pin point problems in
the production schedule so that they can be fixed with minimal loss of
precious production time.
Client Feedback
Too early to quantify. If the program works as predicted the impact will be high. Internal-reduction in the time of programming-less conflict
between trading and production. External-less missed shipments-better selling program/structure.
Tony Turk, Improvement Group Leader, G.H.Michell and
Sons
1 November 96.
Further Information
Please contact Andreas Ernst
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