Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.
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Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) in Business Processes
Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.
Lohnt sich der Einsatz von infoBoard im Unternehmen ?
infoBoard und Value Streams analyses
Huh, what does that have to do with an electronic planning board then?
Well… Poorly utilised time, idle times and waiting times are defined as ‘waste‘. You may, therefore, want to consider your business processes to identify and eliminate this wastage by redesigning your workflow into better processes. And that works best with infoBoard’s sample order system. A small business operations function is ‘create sample order from planning object group’.
Now, however, we would like to identify the entire business process chain through several independent units. Conflicts between departments resulting from moving appointments are pointed out and finally corrected.
In a BusinessController application, detailed tasks from several planning boards are combined ino individual blocks. When given buffer times are exceeded, the overlap time is visually depicted as a problem. They also prompt the sending of an automated email notification.
It is possible to quantify the effect of delays with the agreed value stream. For example, one day of short-term delays costs 15 000 EUR, whereas one day of long-term delays costs xxx EUR. The delays are no longer considered as ‘normal’ but rather as ‘subject to change’.
Why is infoBoard better?
In a typically American way, the usual questions is asked after two sentences here. We are in Chicago at the biggest trade show for manufacturing and are trying to be cool. The usual “how are you?” always slows me down. After four days, I answer “I am good”. Modesty is not a virtue here: let me tell you quite clearly, why you should be interested in Europe’s number one professional scheduling and capacity-planning tool.
Because infoBoard has spoken to over 20,000 respondents responsible for professional planning and has satisfied their needs by programming over 6,000 innovative solutions to problems. Because we have not looked away anywhere, making it a unique tool to have.. Because the interface is easy to understand and navigate and because, as well as looking beautiful, we are the only company to offer our second USP: the Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) tool.
Oh yes, that is what I thought when I looked at the monitor! Easy!
After that has been explained, I now show our SmartWatch application and the two visitors are dreaming with us. Their enthusiasm is a reward for our many years of effort and, for a moment, America is giving something back to Old Europe.
Another visitor thinks that an integrator of engine data in the South Hall would also have an intelligent system. But he brought that from Germany twenty years ago. Oh! The arguments with the algorithm – the algorithm that can calculate and place everything perfectly. Not marketable! “Please talk to the people responsible for scheduling. Over 10 years, only 2 out of 20,000 wanted a completely automated planning system.” – all from from touch of a button. The other 19,998 wanted software that supported their thinking, allowing them to plan as they like, quickly and easily. That is the way it is.
I receive an email from an employee working at a US automotive supplier operating globally. The company is involved in re-manufacturing and is an OEM supplier of brakes and axles. His colleague would have taken a prospectus from the show, and they want to introduce a SCADA system with around six million operations a year at this location and further expansion planned at other locations. Can we arrange a demo “early next week”? Of course! But this is where cultures clash. I would like to prepare well for the appointment, whereas he would like to have it come to him. Instead of a concise, structured Excel table, he sends me prose. With my American ‘neighbour’ at the stand next to me, I analyse the text, extract the relevant information and build a five-columned Excel spreadsheet myself. Imported into infoBoard, made screenshots of the planning board, used the web reporting tools and evaluated the processes using BusinessController. Deadline for the demo: next Monday at 10am EST. Just how I need it. Concrete. Results oriented.
After the exhibition, we take the rented bicycles along the waterfront of Michigan Lake to the city, turn off the Chicago River into the city centre. We find a nice steak restaurant with a view overlooking the river. The sun still offers warmth and the strong winds cool our backs (yes, Chicago: The Windy City). The $80 listed turns into an unbelievable $150 – and not only because of tax and 15% service charges. Who can actually afford that? We live in Germany in a very different system! Not as much net cash but cheaper living costs.
Company-wide means inter-departmental!
At the Chillventa trade fair in Nuremberg, an infoBoard customer calls me: R&D, Design, Workshop and Production have very different requirements, meaning that the long processing chains for the following departments can no longer be logically combined due to the long distances and time sequences. Their needs are too varied, too different. Therefore, the planning boards also have to look different. Of course the orders are joined together but…
Talk to the manufacturer! We are developing new functions! Over 500 features every year.
How can infoBoard help? With a connected infoBoard SyncTool Server, tasks can be placed on transfer lines and delivered to other departments with other infoBoard planning boards. The planning objects are synchronised by the unique IDs: in the case of time shifts, the first planning board will be automatically informed and adjusted accordingly.
Why can I answer this so quickly: because this need is now being described to us increasingly often. The large companies are organised into individual departments, accepted as special requirements. Because these departments can present themselves better than “the without”, and management now wants the whole profit from the use of infoBoard. This is also our experience: growing companies need infoBoard to grow sensibly and quickly.
Another method of working with several planning board: You can drag and drop planning objects with complete contents from one to the other with several open plant panels.
By the way, we also use emails with fixed keywords to automatically generate planning objects. And from our CRM system, we generate new planning objects for reprints at the push of a button. Contact us!
A growing company with increased cases numbers, more employees, and more branches needs a reliable organization.
If you have any questions, we will soon see a photo gallery and maybe even a video here. Stay tuned!
Production needs: Backwards planning
An infoBoard partner in Europe asked me to help a prospective customer with his planning needs. It regarded constructing complex aluminium components for the train industry.
Thanks to the Austrians (see blog entry), infoBoard has backwards scheduling in its sample order system. But how can ten different sub-project tasks with different dependencies be planned backwards? Can the complex sequences be entered into the sample order form in a timely manner and be at all understandable?
Procedure: The ten different sub-projects are imported from Excel and a new planning board with all of the necessary resources and ten projects is created. I then solve the grouping of the sub-projects step by step, and integrate them into the first project with “Edit Object Group”. I can also set additional dependencies with the “Edit Predecessors” tool.
In Enterprise Edition, you can use the “Create sample order from object group” function. Right-click on the finished project group and choose this option, and a sample order with all dependencies of the ten projects will be created.
infoBoard Sample Order
Now I have the complex project listed in the sample order panel and can reverse plan this from the desired end date.
infoBoard backwards planning of sample orders
That is something we can do again and again. In this image, we can see a combination of both critical path representations (red lines on the planning diagram) and critical chain paths (CCPM).
infoBoard ‘Critical Path’ and ‘Critical Chain’ representation
Realistic deadlines with the resources available now appear.
infoBoard Production with several components
The planning board should appear without arrows for employees.
infoBoard Production with several components (without arrow connections)
These realistic deadlines are also needed, for example, in the food industry: numerous projects with project planning tools fail due to not taking into account holiday time. infoBoard can help here as well, because infoBoard records all projects.
But how can a project manager control a project, when they cannot see it alone? For example, with the ‘Print Gantt Diagram’ feature – now with the new object filter! With this, all other projects will be hidden from the planning board. Yet another advantage for realistic scheduling!
Striving for better decisions
What is the core of business planning?
You have to make the best decisions for an uncertain future. To be able to make realistic predictions. How we would wish for that! Would we all not make optimal decisions if we knew what was going to happen in the near future. Decisions would then no longer be a stab in the dark.
It all comes back to the question: What is to be done? How should it be done? When should it be done? Who should do it, and where?
All questions can be answered by the planning board.
Through pictoral, schematic images, the sensory abilities of human intelligence are stimulated, which are faster than the logical processing of terms (words). Processing then takes place holistically and not in logical chains.
Those who use infoBoard, use technology to make good decisions for production processes today, to see their effects immediately, and to communicate these effects in the face of an uncertain future.
In the decision-making process, the imagination is stimulated, allowing you to find new solutions to your problems. This allows us to explore new methods and find even better solutions.
Better solutions reduce opportunity costs as well as operating costs, avoiding or even improving peaks, and achieving an even and consistent utilisation of existing resources – possibly increasing output..
This is the main reason why infoBoard is mainly found in growing company, who cannot effectively manage their organic growth without infoBoard.That is why you are giving away market opportunities, and only work effectively enough, when you plan your production through Excel.
Why are decisions important?
How do you prepare decisions? Why do you prepare decisions? You are respondng to a new situation, and should go through a decision-making process such as this:
– A timely detection of problems
– Analysis of these problems
– Formulate solutions
What do customers say?
A customer reported the following after using infoBoard for four months (translated from German):
“We actually only wanted infoBoard temporarily to improve our growth phase. We’ve been implementing an ERP system fora year, but now we will definitely be keeping infoBoard!
“With sixty employees now, we have been able to extend our planning from one week to several weeks. This means that we avoid peaks in machine time and now work more evenly. The availability of information (what is in progress, when it will be finished etc.) is available immediately without any effort. For the first time, the sales department is able to see the progress of production and is ergo more effective and targeted in its efforts.
Through feedback reports on infoBoard WebViews, group leaders can finally assessand estimate: where are we?”
The customer took a heuristic approach with trial and error and, after a short time, has created three approaches to a solution and has more than achieved his target. (Note that this three month detour in setting up production can be avoided by not declining the infoBoard Training Workshops.
The connection to the new ERP system is now planned.
What do prospective customers with Excel planning say?
A prospective customer in plant manufacturing reported the following to me (translated from German):
“We have no ERP system, the project leaders calculate and describes the tasks with Excel, but have no resource responsibilities. Our warehouse should be shut down, we already buy 80% more than what the workshop (through the leader) planned. Orders from other areas are, however, always coming into the workshop and the effects (delays on our projects) is inestimable.
“Additionally, part of our team is on construction sites for assembly or service work. Production is therefore not plannable.”
The company began to look around on the market. Yes, infoBoard is not an ERP system! infoBoard simplifies the jobs to duration bars on a resource row, and allows for scheduling and capacity planning.
Admittedly, if you doesn’t know what you should do (task plans, sequencing of stages), then you also cannot make a schedule plan.
But believe me, every enterprise has established business operations, and the creation of products and services comes from good practice – from experience.
What do you have to decide in this situation? Market view, firstly, and then a complete solution? That’s unrealistic.. My suggestion is more like the Pareto principle: roughly 80% of the goals for planned production can be quickly implemented and tracked thanks to a 20% investment of time and money.
Experience gained in this way is inestimably important for the later implementation of an ERP system.
Increase the quality of your decisions!
The infoBoard planning board is THE tool for every responsible decision-maker in the company’s business operations.
Using infoBoard as a tool for production planning means using technology, using Excel to plan production doesn’t.
infoBoard also facilitates a heuristic approach, eg. trial and error. Work years of experience into your business model!
Never stop learning
If you want to learn more about better planning, as well as the business processes happening in your company, I would suggest that you search for the following terms in Wikipedia. The terms provide a theoretical background to your practical problems.
- complexity
- decision theory
- scheduling
- production planning
- emergence
- Holism (“the whole is more than the sum of its parts)
- matrix
Which tools and methods to you use to make better decisions?