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Can't track work order progress? Three ways to make the shop floor visible
Sales calls several times a day asking "where is that order now?" The plant manager has to walk the floor and ask around. When you can't tra…
TOPIC 05 / 08
Manufacturing & B2B
Work orders, inventory, purchasing, lead times. Shop-floor data accurate enough to decide on.
27 articlesStart with these three
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Delivery dates keep slipping? Check these three data sources first
By the third time you say "this time it's real," the customer stops believing you. When delivery dates keep slipping, most owners assume sal…
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A wholesale ordering system: let retailers order on LINE themselves
Retailers are used to sending a LINE message like "the usual, five more cases," and sales reps spend every morning copying those messages in…
All articles 27
A system for construction companies: quotation, progress and billing on one line
Job done, final payment collected, and only then you find out the project made no money? This post covers why a construction company's money…
What is a LIMS? What testing labs need to settle before implementation
Sample status takes three people to track down. The previous version of a revised report can't be found. The whole company works overtime fi…
How to read inventory turnover: the three inventory metrics owners should watch
The warehouse is packed, yet sales complains about stockouts every day. The two often happen at the same time. This post covers how to calcu…
Wholesale pricing tiers: how a system handles different prices for different customers
Different prices for different customers is normal in wholesale, and a system can handle it. The condition: break pricing into a set of rule…
Sales Reps Guessing Delivery Dates? Work Out Promise Dates From Stock and Capacity
A sales rep promises the customer next Wednesday, then gets back to the office and finds the materials haven't arrived and the line is fully…
Capacity planning: know whether you can deliver before you take the order
Sales promises a delivery date in front of the customer, then comes back and asks the factory whether it can be done. That is where delivery…
Can't trace defects to a cause? How to keep a quality defect log
Many factories log defects every day, but only the count, so they never find the cause. This post shows you how to keep a minimum quality de…
What messy part numbers cost you, and how to clean up product master data
One screw, three part numbers in the system. Scattered inventory, duplicate purchase orders and wrong costs all start here. This post covers…
Food lot traceability: how to trace a batch from raw material to customer
A customer reports a problem with one batch. How long would it take you to list which raw materials it used, what else that same raw materia…
Managing Returns: Tracking Every Step From Complaint to Restock
Sales says yes to a return. The warehouse gets a box with no paperwork. At month-end, accounting finds the money went out and the goods neve…
A wholesale ordering system: let retailers order on LINE themselves
Retailers are used to sending a LINE message like "the usual, five more cases," and sales reps spend every morning copying those messages in…
Customer service and repairs for equipment dealers: how one refrigeration machinery maker did it
Most equipment dealers take repair requests on LINE, dispatch from memory, and chase by phone. Using real results from a refrigeration machi…
How to compare supplier quotes without overpaying: record every inquiry, comparison and negotiation
Get three quotes, pick the cheapest. It looks like the safe choice, and it often gets you the highest total cost. This post breaks supplier …
Can't track work order progress? Three ways to make the shop floor visible
Sales calls several times a day asking "where is that order now?" The plant manager has to walk the floor and ask around. When you can't tra…
How to calculate safety stock and when to reorder: a practical method
Safety stock is not “keep a bit extra so you feel safe.” It is a number calculated from daily usage and supplier lead time. This post walks …
How to manage multi-warehouse inventory: recording transfers, in-transit stock, and loans
Once you have several warehouses, most of the trouble does not happen inside them. It happens while goods are on the road, lent out, or sitt…
How to design a quotation template customers can read and sales reps can't get wrong
Every quotation has two readers. The customer needs to see at a glance what they're buying and how much they'll pay. The company needs to ma…
Shipping errors keep happening: error-proofing picking, packing, and final checks
When orders keep shipping wrong, telling staff to be more careful usually doesn't work. Repetitive work guarantees human error. This post br…
Dead Stock: Where It Comes From and How to Clear It
The material in your warehouse that nobody dares touch didn't go dead from sitting too long. The cause was planted the moment it came in. Th…
Why your production reporting data is fake: buddy punching, backfilling, and end-of-shift catch-up
The system is live and reports come in every day. But when you use those labor hours to calculate cost, you don't believe the numbers yourse…
Companies with messy BOMs usually get the same thing wrong
"We have two BOMs. Engineering has one, production has one." That sentence is the starting point of almost every BOM mess. The problem is no…
Delivery dates keep slipping? Check these three data sources first
By the third time you say "this time it's real," the customer stops believing you. When delivery dates keep slipping, most owners assume sal…
Purchase orders over LINE? Where purchasing breaks between request and receiving
Purchasing has six stages: purchase request, approval, ordering, delivery tracking, receiving, and reconciliation and payment. Small and mid…
Chasing supplier delivery dates by phone? Turn it into a record
Purchasing chases materials by calling suppliers one by one, and every piece of delivery information stays in that person's head. It's the s…
Inventory counts that never reconcile: six sources of book-to-stock mismatches
What most companies do after a stock count is change the books to match the floor, then call it closed. But the discrepancy number itself ha…
Rush orders wrecking your factory schedule? First decide who can insert them and who pays
"We finish the schedule, one phone call inserts a rush order, and the whole week starts over." The chaos from rush orders looks like a sched…
Print shop quotation automation: how does the veteran estimator's know-how get into the system?
Look at the paper, the quantity, the finishing, how urgent it is, and the veteran estimator names a price in one sentence. The young salespe…