Case Study: Mott Implementation

Founded in 1959, the Mott Corporation is a market leader in OEM (original equipment manufacturer) parts/components, process filtration systems, and high purity products. They, however, possessed a surprisingly low-tech approach to production scheduling. They, like many manufacturers, relied on a whiteboard, spreadsheets, and a printed schedule to track their production cycle. Due to the complicated nature of the manual scheduling process, they weren’t practicing capacity or finite capacity scheduling.

Mott Corp resolved to upgrade production scheduling systems and went in search of the best-of-breed. They evaluated several planning and scheduling solutions before making a selection. In the end, PlanetTogether’s scheduling software alleviated their pain points.

Impact Analysis

Gauging the potential consequences of change—and estimating what is needed to accomplish that change—continues to present an issue for many companies. These changes include both the high-level and detailed impact analysis of increased demand, modified staffing levels, and additions of production equipment. The problems arise when companies are unable to see how these changes affect their production schedule in real-time. Therefore, organizations too often either overshoot or undershoot their expectations and result in ROI from these investments.

Benefits

PlanetTogether software assists in the above issues through the following avenues:

• What-if analysis - when a company places an individual order or entire operation on hold, the PlanetTogether system immediately displays the impact of that change and aids in the decision-making process of taking on additional orders from customers.
• Visual Aids - Visual analysis of the information enhances comprehension across departments. All employees can quickly access all functions from one easy-to-use screen or side-by-side with other screens.
• Operations Integration - PlanetTogether software systematizes schedule changes and decision-making by loading all customer orders, priorities, and capacity. It then creates dynamic plan suggestions for everyone in the organization to follow.

Naturally, there's a learning curve with any process overhaul. Always on call for assistance, the PlanetTogether team promptly responds to any issues that may arise to fulfill its rapid implementation promise.

About Planet Together

PlanetTogether provides stellar performance in production scheduling for multi-plant manufacturers. Founded in 2004 by Cornell University engineers, this San Diego-based software developer thrives on the challenge of algorithms to drive manufacturing efficiency. PlanetTogether’s planning and scheduling software cut inventory and labor costs in half. It boosts productivity by double digits and connects multi-plant operations with precision. Fully customizable, the software integrates with virtually all ERP systems, typically in four months, and pays for itself in six.