Q: What is eBECS’ role going forward?
A: The solution is sold, maintained and supported by Microsoft. eBECS has a very good knowledge of the solution, and they are the "Lean Centre of Excellence for training and certification”, visit http://www.leancentreofexcellence.com/ for more details..
Q: Will a partner need any certification to sell, implement and support Lean Manufacturing for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009?
A: Partners must be certified through the certification program provided by eBECS in order to sell, implement and support the solution.
The partner certification programme consists of 2 courses:
Course 1: Positioning Lean Manufacturing for Microsoft Dynamics AX in your Sales Engagement
Course 2: Demonstrating Lean Manufacturing for Microsoft Dynamics AX
Please visit the Microsoft Event Registration to book a place, the first training is scheduled in Atlanta, US August 17th to 21st.
In order for a partner to be certified to sell Lean Manufacturing in Microsoft Dynamics AX the partner will need to ensure that a minimum of two of their consultants have attended and passed this certification program. It will be expected that attendees are experienced in the areas of Inventory, Production and Master Planning and have achieved relevant certification on Microsoft Dynamics AX in those areas.
In addition to the certification course, a one week follow-up course is available for attendees who have already completed the certification course. This 5-day classroom based course “Implementing a Lean Enterprise on Dynamics AX” will build on the certification class and include an introduction to the additional capability that eBECS provides. The course will provide attendees the opportunity to practice their knowledge on more advanced case studies. This is not a certification requirement, but is strongly recommended for those consultants who will be expected to install and configure the Lean Manufacturing module following a successful sales engagement.
It may take some time for partners to achieve certification and it maybe that some partners, whilst interested in including Lean in their marketing campaigns, will not want to undertake the certification program. To help partners either as an interim support mechanism or as a longer term relationship, eBECS provides a sales and implementation support service agreed uniquely with each partner. For more information on this please get in touch with us at partner@ebecs.com to understand how this can work for your partner organisation.
Friday, 17 July 2009
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
Lean around the corner - August 1st Go live
Lean Manufacturing for Microsoft Dynamics AX and additional Lean functionality provided by eBECS will be generally available on August 1st 2009.
Microsoft has engaged eBECS to establish the Microsoft Dynamics Lean Centre of Excellence. The mission of the Center is to serve as an educational outreach/training facility for organisations that require training on the Lean capabilities in order to further their Lean initiatives. Microsoft recognises that a successful Lean implementation is not simply about providing the right software tools; as important are the skills of the team that architect and deliver the solution.
The Centre is currently ready to serve the Microsoft partner community for sales and implementation training and is scheduling training for late 2009 for current Microsoft Dynamics customers, as well as companies that are considering Microsoft Dynamics solutions. To register your interest please email customer@ebecs.com
The first partner trainings will be offered in Atlanta, Georgia during in the week of August 17th - 21st, with two back-to-back courses available. An invitation will be sent to Microsoft Partners with registration instructions within the next 10 days.
In addition to training, the Centre will also serve as a magnet for collecting new ideas and requirements from existing and future users of Microsoft Dynamics.
Microsoft has engaged eBECS to establish the Microsoft Dynamics Lean Centre of Excellence. The mission of the Center is to serve as an educational outreach/training facility for organisations that require training on the Lean capabilities in order to further their Lean initiatives. Microsoft recognises that a successful Lean implementation is not simply about providing the right software tools; as important are the skills of the team that architect and deliver the solution.
The Centre is currently ready to serve the Microsoft partner community for sales and implementation training and is scheduling training for late 2009 for current Microsoft Dynamics customers, as well as companies that are considering Microsoft Dynamics solutions. To register your interest please email customer@ebecs.com
The first partner trainings will be offered in Atlanta, Georgia during in the week of August 17th - 21st, with two back-to-back courses available. An invitation will be sent to Microsoft Partners with registration instructions within the next 10 days.
In addition to training, the Centre will also serve as a magnet for collecting new ideas and requirements from existing and future users of Microsoft Dynamics.
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
The first in a series of articles following the implementation of Lean Manufacturing for Microsoft Dynamics AX to a Medical Equipment Manufacturer
Roll With Lean: New ERP Systems Work With Lean Principles, Not Against Them
Part 1 Synopsys: Lean transformations require transformation of IT systems to reflect the new realities of operation with pull systems, kanbans and the requirement to respond immediately to changes in customer demand.
It's all very well leaning-out your manufacturing and supply chain processes but if your ERP systems aren't up to the job, then all that might happen is that balancing production gets progressively more difficult as your supply chain backs up in a maze of spreadsheets, guesswork and finger-pointing.
The nice part of my job is playing a direct role in helping my customers move their businesses from MRP-driven platforms, usually backed-up with an acre of spreadsheets, to something that closer-reflects how to operate in a Lean environment: Kanbans and all.
I have a customer in the UK who manufactures medical equipment. Over the past five years, they have embodied some of the best aspects of a Lean transformation: not only have they implemented all the best aspects of cellular manufacturing, but their product range has been rationalised in an extremely intelligent manner, combining a simplified range of common product families with a broad market reach for both domestic and export markets. In some cases, product variation can be controlled through a software change alone, such has been the extent of Lean product design.
Unfortunately, the supply chain was creaking and causing a familiar pattern of shortages, expedited deliveries and stock obsolescence, especially for component parts. What had happened was that as the manufacturing areas moved toward cellular production, the MRP system could not adapt. The traditional structure of production orders and MRP had gradually diverged from how the production processes were evolving, while the hard-pressed purchasing manager needed to maintain an alternative set of inventory and demand figures for much of his portfolio.
A significant part of the problem lay in the MRP system's structure. The traditional MRP model of forecast-based demand generating a range of production orders throughout the bill-of-materials didn't match a kanban-based environment where replenishment of finished products, components and key subassemblies was now managed by physical kanban cards. MRP was retained to generate production orders, as much as to generate documentation for the shop floor, as to use the system to consume inventory through backflushing.
The problem was that the generated orders simply did not match what they were making. Orders were created to reflect batch quantities far in excess of the daily capacity and this led to a backlog in system bookings: physical inventory would routinely diverge from system inventory and not only would this lead to problems with the despatch of finished goods, but component and subassembly inventories would diverge far from reality.
Now let's look at purchasing and stores. Here, system inventory could not be relied-upon and this led to the purchasing manager having to initiate regular physical checks of inventory which then had to be loaded into his own spreadsheets which were used to control the supply of key raw materials and components.
This pattern of operation is familiar to many of us. Slowly but inexorably, traditional MRP and production order-based systems fall out of synch with reality and gradually the number of spreadsheets and workarounds increases. System transactions are processed merely in an attempt to keep on-hand values in line with physical inventory and they become increasingly irrelevant as they fail to provide worthwhile information that helps people do their jobs. Meanwhile, as the transactions often fail to reflect the sequence of activities in the shop floor, it becomes increasingly difficult to post the transactions and so the cycle becomes progressively worse.
Some Lean practitioners have an easy solution for this: pull the plug on the MRP system and run things manually either fully or by "phantoming" out parts of the process! Great in theory and for the purist, but not much use in the Real World where we want to manage our business. ERP systems happen to be rather convenient for keeping track of where the business is, not to mention managing the cash and other key assets. What a pity to have a huge black hole in the middle of the whole process!
A better solution might be to implement an ERP system that works with Lean principles rather than against them. The system being implemented by my customer uses electronic kanbans to control the entire internal supply chain, from generating pull-to-order instructions directly from customer orders, through to launching replenishment kanbans to restock inventory throughout the internal supply chain from major subassemblies right down to withdrawing components from the stores.
The benefits of this approach are twofold: first of all, electronic kanban tickets can be set-up to reflect the physical layout of the production area and second, these tickets become transactional documents which can be used to provide feedback immediately they have been satisfied: the pull-to-order tickets for the top-level items can be scanned to perform a real-time update of inventory status, while triggering backflushing transactions if they are required. Similarly, those backflushing transactions can trigger the kanban replenishment of components and subassemblies; again, real-time and ensuring accuracy throughout the internal supply chain.
The key thing is to roll with lean and support it, not fight against it. Lean works and we know it, but traditional ERP systems generally don't get it. There is -shock, horror - still a place for MRP in this process; many companies acknowledge the value of extending the Lean supply chain externally, but often suppliers have to be coaxed to operate within a kanban environment and it may often be a better interim strategy to use traditional reorder management processes to keep the shelves of the main store stocked. It might not be true Lean as the theorists know it, but then again many of them haven't had to deal with your day to day issues, and it is pragmatic. Similarly, MRP can still provide a medium-to-long-term view of requirements to give suppliers an indication of where the market is heading.
My customer will be going live later this summer. Stage One will be to create a manual kanban board so we can schedule the shop floor, allowing us to mix products and level the cells in a visual and intuitive manner. Electronic kanbans still work in the physical world; they give us a traveller to accompany the work and, by carrying barcodes, allows receipts to be booked with minimal effort, thus ensuring that the ERP system maintains an accurate picture of what is going on. We are also developing the Plan For Every Part (PFEP) to ensure we have a clear and easily understood course of action for the supply of materials to the shop floor, while the first preparatory steps towards the generation of purchase kanbans for a pilot group of suppliers are underway.
Our customers have operated ERP with a Lean core for over many years and have succeeded in enhancing their own Lean transformations by operating in an environment where ERP supports Lean and does not work against it. Very soon, one more British manufacturer will join this select group and allow their systems to catch-up with the superb progress they have made with their physical processes.
Please follow this story through the coming months:- It will also be published on the eBECS blog, the eBECS Customer Update, and the Lean eZine.
Neil Ferguson-Lee
NB - Lean Manufacturing for Microsoft Dynamics and additional Lean functionality provided by eBECS will be generally available on August 1st 2009. To find out more please visit www.leancoe.com
Part 1 Synopsys: Lean transformations require transformation of IT systems to reflect the new realities of operation with pull systems, kanbans and the requirement to respond immediately to changes in customer demand.
It's all very well leaning-out your manufacturing and supply chain processes but if your ERP systems aren't up to the job, then all that might happen is that balancing production gets progressively more difficult as your supply chain backs up in a maze of spreadsheets, guesswork and finger-pointing.
The nice part of my job is playing a direct role in helping my customers move their businesses from MRP-driven platforms, usually backed-up with an acre of spreadsheets, to something that closer-reflects how to operate in a Lean environment: Kanbans and all.
I have a customer in the UK who manufactures medical equipment. Over the past five years, they have embodied some of the best aspects of a Lean transformation: not only have they implemented all the best aspects of cellular manufacturing, but their product range has been rationalised in an extremely intelligent manner, combining a simplified range of common product families with a broad market reach for both domestic and export markets. In some cases, product variation can be controlled through a software change alone, such has been the extent of Lean product design.
Unfortunately, the supply chain was creaking and causing a familiar pattern of shortages, expedited deliveries and stock obsolescence, especially for component parts. What had happened was that as the manufacturing areas moved toward cellular production, the MRP system could not adapt. The traditional structure of production orders and MRP had gradually diverged from how the production processes were evolving, while the hard-pressed purchasing manager needed to maintain an alternative set of inventory and demand figures for much of his portfolio.
A significant part of the problem lay in the MRP system's structure. The traditional MRP model of forecast-based demand generating a range of production orders throughout the bill-of-materials didn't match a kanban-based environment where replenishment of finished products, components and key subassemblies was now managed by physical kanban cards. MRP was retained to generate production orders, as much as to generate documentation for the shop floor, as to use the system to consume inventory through backflushing.
The problem was that the generated orders simply did not match what they were making. Orders were created to reflect batch quantities far in excess of the daily capacity and this led to a backlog in system bookings: physical inventory would routinely diverge from system inventory and not only would this lead to problems with the despatch of finished goods, but component and subassembly inventories would diverge far from reality.
Now let's look at purchasing and stores. Here, system inventory could not be relied-upon and this led to the purchasing manager having to initiate regular physical checks of inventory which then had to be loaded into his own spreadsheets which were used to control the supply of key raw materials and components.
This pattern of operation is familiar to many of us. Slowly but inexorably, traditional MRP and production order-based systems fall out of synch with reality and gradually the number of spreadsheets and workarounds increases. System transactions are processed merely in an attempt to keep on-hand values in line with physical inventory and they become increasingly irrelevant as they fail to provide worthwhile information that helps people do their jobs. Meanwhile, as the transactions often fail to reflect the sequence of activities in the shop floor, it becomes increasingly difficult to post the transactions and so the cycle becomes progressively worse.
Some Lean practitioners have an easy solution for this: pull the plug on the MRP system and run things manually either fully or by "phantoming" out parts of the process! Great in theory and for the purist, but not much use in the Real World where we want to manage our business. ERP systems happen to be rather convenient for keeping track of where the business is, not to mention managing the cash and other key assets. What a pity to have a huge black hole in the middle of the whole process!
A better solution might be to implement an ERP system that works with Lean principles rather than against them. The system being implemented by my customer uses electronic kanbans to control the entire internal supply chain, from generating pull-to-order instructions directly from customer orders, through to launching replenishment kanbans to restock inventory throughout the internal supply chain from major subassemblies right down to withdrawing components from the stores.
The benefits of this approach are twofold: first of all, electronic kanban tickets can be set-up to reflect the physical layout of the production area and second, these tickets become transactional documents which can be used to provide feedback immediately they have been satisfied: the pull-to-order tickets for the top-level items can be scanned to perform a real-time update of inventory status, while triggering backflushing transactions if they are required. Similarly, those backflushing transactions can trigger the kanban replenishment of components and subassemblies; again, real-time and ensuring accuracy throughout the internal supply chain.
The key thing is to roll with lean and support it, not fight against it. Lean works and we know it, but traditional ERP systems generally don't get it. There is -shock, horror - still a place for MRP in this process; many companies acknowledge the value of extending the Lean supply chain externally, but often suppliers have to be coaxed to operate within a kanban environment and it may often be a better interim strategy to use traditional reorder management processes to keep the shelves of the main store stocked. It might not be true Lean as the theorists know it, but then again many of them haven't had to deal with your day to day issues, and it is pragmatic. Similarly, MRP can still provide a medium-to-long-term view of requirements to give suppliers an indication of where the market is heading.
My customer will be going live later this summer. Stage One will be to create a manual kanban board so we can schedule the shop floor, allowing us to mix products and level the cells in a visual and intuitive manner. Electronic kanbans still work in the physical world; they give us a traveller to accompany the work and, by carrying barcodes, allows receipts to be booked with minimal effort, thus ensuring that the ERP system maintains an accurate picture of what is going on. We are also developing the Plan For Every Part (PFEP) to ensure we have a clear and easily understood course of action for the supply of materials to the shop floor, while the first preparatory steps towards the generation of purchase kanbans for a pilot group of suppliers are underway.
Our customers have operated ERP with a Lean core for over many years and have succeeded in enhancing their own Lean transformations by operating in an environment where ERP supports Lean and does not work against it. Very soon, one more British manufacturer will join this select group and allow their systems to catch-up with the superb progress they have made with their physical processes.
Please follow this story through the coming months:- It will also be published on the eBECS blog, the eBECS Customer Update, and the Lean eZine.
Neil Ferguson-Lee
NB - Lean Manufacturing for Microsoft Dynamics and additional Lean functionality provided by eBECS will be generally available on August 1st 2009. To find out more please visit www.leancoe.com
Lean & Green Manufacturing: Real Solutions to Cost Cutting - FREE On demand recorded webinar
Missed the live webcast on June 23rd? Watch the recording online or download for offline viewing
Click to watch the recorded Microsoft Dynamics webcast: Lean and Green Manufacturing: Real Solutions to Cut Costs
Despite being around for decades, most manufacturers have still not implemented Lean manufacturing processes and systems to their advantage. Many more still do not understand how to improve operations and manage energy consumption without available environmental performance indicators. With current economic conditions, government regulations and the importance of cutting costs and improving customer service, going "Lean & Green" are the vehicles to accelerate you past your competitors.
If you only have a limited amount of time I would suggest you go straight to hear how WIKA have progressed with their lean journey - 30 minutes into the webinar.
Click to watch the recorded Microsoft Dynamics webcast: Lean and Green Manufacturing: Real Solutions to Cut Costs
Despite being around for decades, most manufacturers have still not implemented Lean manufacturing processes and systems to their advantage. Many more still do not understand how to improve operations and manage energy consumption without available environmental performance indicators. With current economic conditions, government regulations and the importance of cutting costs and improving customer service, going "Lean & Green" are the vehicles to accelerate you past your competitors.
Discover:
- Why Lean is a must-have business initiative in this economic crisis.
- What solutions are available to support your lean initiatives and environmental sustainability
- How companies are going "Lean and Green" for greater advantages
If you only have a limited amount of time I would suggest you go straight to hear how WIKA have progressed with their lean journey - 30 minutes into the webinar.
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