visibility operations management

Visibility Operations Management

The Visibility Operations Management suite simplifies the management and execution of day-to-day and long-range operational tasks of complex product manufacturers. All of the information needed for the creation, development and distribution of complex products is readily accessible. It enables organizations to streamline their operations by reducing excess inventory, investing in the right inventories improving quality assurance, efficiently allocating personnel and resources, and enhancing overall communication. 

Visibility ERP encompasses the many aspects of Operations Management extending well beyond inventory management. Visibility ERP delivers cost effective Operations Management capabilities throughout the manufacturing system. This integrated suite of modules and sub-systems ensure superior business process in the areas of Quality Systems Management, Labor Management, Shop Floor Control, Work in Process (WPI), Maintenance Operations and Data Collection. Functionality in these areas is critical to realizing the benefits of an optimized manufacturing business operation. 

What Does Visibility Operations Management Offer?

Quality Systems Management

Visibility ERP Quality Systems Management module is integrated throughout the application and business process. It delivers integrated quality assurance management by extending standard shop floor control and provides for the creation and use of revision controlled, "process oriented" routings. Quality Systems Management also offers a number of tools to assist in quality control data collection and analysis. This module can help businesses achieve ISO compliance with a well defined process throughout the business from the shop floor and in all aspects of the production cycle. 

Closed-loop controls are accomplished in the Quality Systems Management module via the following six key items, each of which has a definition process and an execution process: 

• Online maintenance and availability of procedures and work area instructions
• Process attributes definition and data collection
• Linkage of employee skills and tools to process steps
• Tooling use and lifecycle management
• Integrated, online corrective action requests
• Online enforcement of strict document revision control 
• Linkage of procedures or work area instruction with processes and tools

Labor Management

Visibility ERP Labor Management provides all companies with the ability to generate timely management information, in addition to facilitating the company's ability to ensure the smooth running of Human Resources (HR) administration. 

In complex product manufacturing there is typically a greater span of resources that need to record specific time against customer sales orders, work orders, projects or department charges. Visibility ERP provides comprehensive tools for capturing both production related and overhead time bookings, ranging from hourly timesheets to web based time collection for remote employees. 

Shop Floor Control

Shop Floor Control supports the operational side of production. It provides shop floor work center and routing definition, operation scheduling, and production activity reporting. Comprehensive information is available regarding shop capacity, order status, work center performance versus plan and actual operation costs. Multiple scheduling methods are available and can be applied to selected work orders. 

The Visibility ERP Shop Floor Control module provides maximum flexibility to deploy plant wide resources using finite, infinite, backward or forward scheduling. Users may split work orders, track material and change routing operations content and scheduling to meet the critical needs in the time required. 

Visibility ERP also provides comprehensive shop floor control capabilities to enable full definition of routings along with primary and alternate work centers, man/machine resource costing capabilities and the ability to manage sub-contracted operations. This allows employees to control the level of resolution used in tracking jobs throughout the manufacturing process at each data collection or input point, from work order origination, to in-process change management, to active shop floor monitoring (in relation to defined process execution) and actual cost performance (in relation to estimated cost.)

Work in Process

Visibility ERP Work in Process (WIP) takes advantage of the integrated drill-down functionality featured through all inquiries. From one screen, a planner can allocate material, check deliveries, adjust scheduling and inquire into the status of costs and hours posted on the job. The production Bill of Materials may be adjusted, copied or completely customized. The Visibility ERP job hierarchy allows all work orders related to a sales order to be linked together. Work orders can be created directly from a sales order in one action, generating a complete sales-order-to-work-order hierarchy for both single and multi-level assemblies for manufacturing. 

The Visibility ERP WIP module allows each business to effectively manage the production functions of the business. It identifies assemblies to be built, channels material for work orders into the production floor and returns finished assemblies to the warehouse for shipment to all customers. 

Visibility ERP delivers real value to WIP management:

• Provides complete support for mixed mode (hybrid) and To Order manufacturing 
• Supports paperless work order production
• Tracks and manages job related costs throughout the manufacturing process
• Enables effective scheduling and load balancing of resources and work centers
• Facilitates the orderly definition and management of related work order hierarchies
• Provides real-time comparison of actual vs. expected cost
• Allows for direct generation of work orders from sales order demand, MRP planned orders and requisitions
• Supports planning and execution of outside processes
• Allows direct linking between purchase order supply and work order operation

Maintenance Operations

The ability to track incidents and service equipment after installation is an integral part of capital equipment manufacturers. The Visibility ERP Maintenance Operations module assists with the tracking and resolution of customer service calls through its integration with the controls, labor and order entry features of other Visibility ERP modules. This module allows you to:

• Track and report equipment service calls
• Track and report equipment failures
• Track and report equipment repairs
• Catalog contract types and associated coverage
• Manufactured equipment service information integrated with ERP system

Data Collection

Supports for barcode identified inventory data collection is available in support of the following inventory related transactions.

• Kit completion - material issues to work orders
• Production receipts from work orders
• Physical inventory count
• Cycle count