Operational Planning and control begins with ERP.  Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems automate and optimize business operations by integrating all of the data and processes of an organization into a single unified solution in order to maximize profitable growth. The ERP solution Symetrics selected for our business, Epicor, delivers exactly that – a single end-to-end software solution.  Epicor's ERP solution goes beyond traditional ERP.  In addition to financial, inventory and manufacturing management capabilities, there are also in-depth supply chain management, customer relationship management, business intelligence and enterprise performance management functionality.  Epicor ERP utilizes Web 2.0 concepts to provide users with a collaborative and productive enterprise business application experience.

The Symetrics ERP system starts at the beginning with the Quoting process.  From there, the system tracks all Sales Orders and links them to the Quotes.  The Part Master and the Methods of Manufacture support the creation of Jobs, or Work Orders, that can link to the Sales Orders, or to Inventory builds.  Jobs include the BOM and also a Bill of Operations (the steps necessary to create the product).  The system schedules the Jobs through each operation and tells the Buyers what parts are needed, and when they are needed.  Purchase Orders are created to bring in the necessary parts at the right time.  The parts are received, inspected, and issued to the correct Job.  As the Job progresses through the operations, all labor transactions are captured, keeping track of the time spent by an employee, labor and material costs, quantity completed, and the quality status of each unit.  Upon completion of the Job, the product is tracked as it is shipped against the Sales Orders or stocked in inventory.  Shipping a product generates an Invoice, which is submitted to the Customer by Accounts Receivable.  As invoices are received from Suppliers, Accounts Payable enters them into the ERP system and then pays them with checks created by ERP.  Finally, Payroll is run based on the hours worked per the ERP system’s records.

All these transactions are interrelated.  Everyone in the company makes use of this one all-encompassing body of information.  Reports and screens can be customized in order to make the system perform in the way that works best for us.  The status and location of any Quote or Order or Job or Shipment can be ascertained quickly through this system.

In Manufacturing, the ERP system is married up with our Product Data Management (PDM) system and our Aegis Circuit Cam system for Work Instructions.  The PDM system is a library of all product and process related documentation, including

• all design authority documentation such as assembly drawings, parts lists, schematics, etc
• internally generated work instructions for the operator
• contracts and purchase orders
• CDRLs
• general specs
• internal processes and procedures

The PDM system retains all prior revisions, and all change order related documentation supporting the revisions, both externally generated and internally generated.

The “internally generated work instructions for the operator” in the above list refers to the Circuit Cam documents developed by Manufacturing Engineering and used by the operator for the clear direction necessary for consistent production of top quality product.  Each operation on a job is meticulously displayed with all parts color-coded, with special instructions annotated, and sometimes with supporting photographic examples, so the operator has no question how to perform the operation.

Operators can pull up any document from the PDM system, including the Circuit Cam work instructions, on their terminals, with complete confidence that they are seeing only the most recent revisions.

Periodic inspection and test steps built into the process assure that the process is still performing as expected.  While the operators are responsible for the quality of their work and perform their own inspections, the quality inspections sometimes spot defects that were missed and trends that would not be noticeable to a single operator.  These inspection and test results are fed into a comprehensive quality database system where there is no limit to the investigation and troubleshooting that can be done.  Quality Engineers can relate test failures back to inspection results and isolate causes.  All results are reviewed weekly by representatives from all operational departments.  This capability allows Symetrics to operate at world class quality levels, reducing costs, reducing lead times, and improving predictability.