Year 8 Proposal
Project No.: I98-P03
Competency: Intelligent Systems
Decision Making Constraints In Supply Chain Management
Project Team:
Leader Guillermo Duenas
Email: duenasg@philacol.edu Phone: 215 951 2823
Name/school/expertise
Members: Mohamde Abou-Iiana PCTS Textile Engineering
John Luke PCTS Textile Marketing
Joseph Abelson PCTS Quality Management
Objective:
The objective of this program is to identify and eliminate the bottlenecks in the implementation of textile industry specific Enterprise Resource Planning software. . The United States weaving industry has invested heavily in state-of-the-art equipment to make it a world class competitor. Now, as machinery appears to be reaching functional operating limits, the industry must look to streamline other areas of its manufacturing process to continue to improve efficiencies and to achieve further cost reductions. For example, unproductive gaps in manufacturing; i.e., the waiting time between productive activities in the batch processing of yarn, greige fabric and finished fabric, are major elements of cost. Recently, textila and apparel companies have started to use ERP software in order to efficiently manage their supply chain. While the experience of these companies seem to show improvements in the reduction of inventories and a reduction in the time of delivery of product sto the consumer, the improvements are significantly limited by the capacity of the decision making processes of the organization.
Relevance to NTC Mission:
Increased fabric and garment imports have impacted the US fabric industry significantly. The spate of imports continues to grow despite heavy investment in modern fabric forming equipment by the US weaving industry. . This project will focus on identifying and eliminating the decision making bottlenecks that occur when textile companies use ERP sotware to better manage and compress their supply chain. Streamlining the decision making processes will help textile manufacturers reduce non-productive time and inventory costs from their system and thus be more competitive in the world textile economy.
State of the Art:
Quick Response (QR) to customer requests is an imperative in today's global textile economy. QR requires that a company capture and respond to a profusion of internal and external information. This usually necessitates a seamless exchange of information among members of the distribution chain through software like the process control packages offered by Oracle, Peoplesoft, Baan and SAP. This software underpins philosophies like Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP II) and Just-in-Time (JIT) to reduce turn around time, reduce inventory costs and shrink the supply chain while not sacrificing and, as a matter of fact, improving response to global market forces. Several textile and apparel companies have started to use industry specific ERP software to improve the management of their supply chains. Furthermore, suppliers manufacturers and retailers are designing innovative ways of linking their supply chains and thus increase the effectiveness of the industry supply chain.
There is a need though to begin looking at the decision making processes upon which the effective use of the information provided by ERP and intercompany systems depends.
Approach:
Continuing contact ATMI and DAMA has provided us with the body of knowledge that currently exists in the textile industry on suplly chain management. The main premise underlying the majority of the studies available is that the use of industry specific supply chain managemet software will take out cost and make the chain more responsive to customers. Based on the theory of constraints (TOC), our study is based on the premise that whilw the use of such software is a necessary condition for improvement it is not a sufficient condition. In order to improve the performance of the supply chain of any company or group of companies one must eliminate the botllenecks in the decision making processes, otherwise the use of the software will not yield the expected results.
This Year's Goal:
This year we will work with a textile manufacturer, a major weaver, that is in the process of implementing ERP software and identify the measures of effective performance of its supply chain. We will identify the bottlenecks in the decision making processes and measure the performance of the chain before and after the streamlining of the making processes.
Outreach to Industry:
While the project initially will involve only one major weaver , participation will expand to other weavers and knitters as the industry specific software details become apparent. Industrial interaction with mills like Milliken , West Point Stevens, Cone, Greenwood and Glen Raven will be sought.
New Resources Required:
None