Today, a status report comes from four systems and a morning round of phone calls.
Machine allocation sits in the MES, free stock in the ERP, order progress in a list kept by production planning, and the night's events in the shift log of the shop floor data system. Anyone who wants to know the status rings the shift and jots the answer down in an email. The next morning it all starts again, because yesterday's email only shows yesterday's status.
4sourcesAllocation, stock, order progress and shift log are kept separately.
23production ordersThat many orders pass through winding, assembly and the test bay at the same time each week.
25 minutesmorning roundFour people piece the status together verbally, every working day.
3follow-up queriesThe production manager chases up anything left open, one by one, over the course of the morning.
By seven o'clock the status is in writing, and the morning meeting starts with the first open question rather than with gathering the four sources. That cuts coordination effort by 35%.
The 35% reduction in coordination effort is this agent's headline figure. The 23 orders, the 25-minute morning round and the three follow-up queries reflect a typical week on a production floor; nobody has counted them.