Southco Inc.

SouthCo Inc. is a global leader in engineered touch point solutions including locks, latches, entry fasteners, hinges, handles and other innovative products. They have transformed and grown through innovation, strategic acquisitions and overseas investments providing access hardware solutions to customers across a wide range of industries.

CHALLENGES

Improve how to plan capacity and schedule across production lines utilizing standard SAP functionality:

• Orders drop in continuously often due same day with no capacity evaluation
• No advanced visibility to shop floor or tool room requirements
• Master data not aligned between SAP and MES
• Order size and sequence does not support manufacturing efficiency and is manually changed
• No visibility to labor capacity
• No single source of truth to support decision-making, operations or promise dates to the customer
• Desire to improve use of SAP in preparation for journey to S/4HANA

SOLUTIONS

Transformation project utilizing Reveal’s oVo® methodology focused on production capacity evaluation and leveling to generate realistic production schedules:

• Education for planners/schedulers, shop floor and management on existing SAP capabilities
• Education and accountability on master data to align business rules with business behaviors
• Proactively monitor material availability and prioritize component usage in cases of limited supply
• Evaluate capacity and resolve capacity imbalances, including labor pools
• Short-term, Medium-term, Long-term visibility
• Finite schedule produced and reviewed with Operations Supervisor and Tool Room
• Sequencing supported by Setup Matrices
• Evaluation/reporting to measure plan-schedule-actual performance
• Daily Exception monitoring

BENEFITS

This focused effort is the starting point towards increased usage of standard SAP capabilities and full integration of the supply chain using one system of record.

• Capacity leveling (detailed scheduling) produces realistic schedules
• Optimal capacity commitment via Finite Scheduling
• Available capacity and capacity requirements (load) are determined and compared with each other in lists or graphics
• Capacity Plan integrates with MRP
• Procurement schedules are derived from the Capacity Plan
• Improve decision-making based on actual work center information
• Provide realistic order ship/availability dates to customers
• Ability to determine the best economic use of resources
• Interactive graphical detailed scheduling/dispatching
• Working cross-functionally as a team to address exceptions and drive operations
• Maintain a balance between Supply and Demand
• Provide vision and information across the supply chain