Week 5

■ BETTER PRODUCTION ERP S O F T W A R E

Gear Motions supplies high-precision gearing to companies in numerous industries. It offers an array of precision manufacturing services that include gear grinding and cutting; turning; milling and drilling; broaching and keyseat­ ing; ID and OD grinding; ID honing; and inspection.

ERP System Enables Gearmaker to Achieve Needed Agility EDITED BY ELI PLASKETT I ASSISTANT EDITOR

COMPANY Gear Motions

PROBLEM Custom ers dem anded increasingly short lead tim es

SOLUTION M o du lar ERP so ftw a re from Global Shop Solutions

RESULTS Im proved access to inform ation enabled the shop to im prove costing and scheduling

For years, Gear Motions managed its business with an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that lacked the ability to track data in real time. It relied on users to manually input data in order to update the system. Because of this, changes to schedules or supplier deliveries could render it useless. Without real-time information on stock and machine space availability, the company’s ability to accurately quote potential customers suffered at a time when customer demands were increasing.

Three divisions comprise western New York’s Gear Motions, which distributes its products domestically and abroad. The company’s services include gear grinding and cutting; turning; milling and drilling; broach­ ing and keyseating; inner diameter (ID) and outer diameter (OD) grind­ ing; ID honing; and inspection. It can manufacture gears ranging from a fraction of an inch to as large as 6 feet in diameter.

Providing this array of services became increasingly difficult to sched­ ule and cost because customers want product a lot quicker than they used to, says plant manager Dan Bartelli. Jobs that used to take eight to 10 weeks to complete are now expected in three to five weeks, he says.

The time crunch provided a significant challenge to the business. Cut­ ting machining time in half meant that supplier delays and machine sched­ uling could significantly affect its ability to meet customers’ demands. »

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■ BETTER PRODUCTION ERP S O F T W A R E

In order to m e e t in c re a s ­ ingly tig h t d ead lin es from cu stom ers, G ear M otions had to reth in k its approach to scheduling jobs. Eventually, the com pany s e ttled on an ERP system from Global Shop S olutions to im prove access to d ata. By bringing th is data to g e th e r in an e a s y -to -u n d e rs ta n d fo rm a t, the system e n ab les Gear M otions to be m ore a c c u ra te in costing and quoting.

M aking Inform ation Accessible To remedy this, Gear Motions turned to Global Shop Solutions’ ERP system, which was able to provide accurate, up-to-date information on all aspects of the company’s operation. According to materials manager Dan Sierotnik, “Information from suppliers automatically updates, and it pulls information from different parts of the company together to make scheduling more intuitive.”

Various modules comprise the software to pro­ vide detailed information about the shop, includ­ ing which jobs are in progress, who is logged into a machine, what order a user is working on and how far along a job is. According to Suzanne Waters, director of accounting and information technology, the ERP system helps get the product out faster by providing a more global view of the shop floor. “It also helps us order and purchase

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S c h e d u lin g an d C o sting B E TTER PR O D U C TIO N ■

materials more efficiently by showing what we have in inventory, how much we need to order and the lead times for purchasing those materi­ als,” she says. Further, as a modular product, the shop only needs to implement the modules that specifically speaks to its needs.

One of the biggest draws for Gear Motions was the Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) module, which assists in scheduling jobs. “Sched­ uling with APS enables us to execute more effec­ tively because it gives detailed views from a job, department and entire shopfloor perspective,” Mr. Bartelli says. “It provides many different ways to slice and dice the data, so we can tell what we need to do and when to meet tighter shipping deadlines.” This provides the company with better information for both short- and long-term planning.

Mr. Bartelli says he feels confident in the data’s accuracy and uses it to make necessary adjustments to meet customer deadlines. “The system automatically updates the data every five minutes, so we can see exactly what’s going on in the shop in real time,” he says. “This allows us to act in the moment rather than looking at a report a month later and saying we should have done something differently.”

The Supply and Demand module has also proven to be helpful. It enables the user to bring numerous pieces of data together on one screen, including work order, sales and purchase history. By bringing this data together in an easy-to-understand format, the system enables Gear Motions to

be more accurate in costing and quoting. “It gives us a very efficient quality check process to make sure we did things right and correct G ET YO UR H E A D things when we IN T H E CLO UD did not,” Ms. _.

Should you move to a cloud- W a t e r s s a y s . baSed ERP system ? Learn about

its benefits: gbm .m edia/e2erp R e in f o r c in g C o m p a n y C u ltu re Gear Motions uses the ERP software to create custom Crystal reports. One of these reports »

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MODERN MACHINE SHOP 99

■ BETTER PRODUCTION E R P S O F T W A R E

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Global Shop S o lu tio n s’ ERP system provides d iffe re n t m odules to p erso n alize the fe a tu re s to th e shop’s needs. Each m odule brings d iffe re n t sets of inform ation together, so a shop can pick th e best m odule to serve its shopfloor personnel w h ile selectin g other m odules fo r o th er d e p artm en ts.

day. The report shows which jobs they worked on the day before, when the jobs started and ended, how many parts were completed or scrapped, and so on. It also identifies setup time, indirect time and whether they forgot to log in or out of a particular sequence, she says. Providing reliable performance data without judgment is part of maintaining a culture of feedback and openness. &

tracks output for machine operators on a daily basis, providing a feedback tool for improving performance and accountability. According to Ms. Waters, the company prints a copy of this report and gives it to all machine operators each

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