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Tag Archives: PZE
Workshop orders with infoBoard’s ‘Pool Order’ form
Scenario: Internal service providers within the company (eg. a workshop) receives orders through various different methods, such as by email, telephone, on-call responses or from SAP systems. Often, the orders would be expected to meet minimum requirements, and a performance record or even an SAP number may later be required.
According to increasing numbers of requests from customers, we have created a form creator. From this standard template, forms can be created: one form for each planning board. There are approximately 40 input fields available for transfer. Tooltip text is available, as is the enforcement of ‘mandatory fields’.
If a form field is used to access the user log, the customer can see the list of all of their orders when they call up the infoBoard Web system. A filter can also be used to make the list shorter.
A traffic-light system indicates the status of the job. Red is not yet scheduled, yellow is a scheduled date, and green – finished.
These entries can be printed by the workshop in the standard way using individual plugins.
The infoBoard user-defined attributes, value tables and type definitions are implemented.
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!