How to succeed in die & mould industry

January 13, 2015 2:25 pm

A road map to be successful player in the die and mould industry
Resource planning: an integral approach It is a global fact that tool room operators face critical challenges for the past few years. The reasons behind could be frequent economy slowdowns, tough competition in the local market, import pressure and varied customer expectations. Even though a lot of solutions could be presented as alternatives, effective production planning system only can act as better one as the production time is the key selling factor of the die making industry. 
Scheduling: the critical challenges The important factor in any manufacturing sector is managing the schedule and its tracking model. Even though it looks like a tougher task, if the live data is availed to the operating team, definitely scheduling could be achieved with its closest resolution thereby the turnaround time. Eventually, such TAT advantage could create a positive impact on the pricing which is always being the deciding factor in fetching the order from any customer in this competitive business environment. In fact, there are chances to win more orders with better margin as such a planning system increase the confidence level of the customers. Based on these grounds, there is no doubt that production planning process could stand as an ultimate tool.
Beyond just planning: the driving Factors In general, utilising a planning system would integrate few key factors such as timely availability of bill of materials, mapping resource constraints and co-relating priorities with available orders towards giving the right date of completion to the customers. In addition to that, any such planning tool always could integrate Ideal stock levels, process flow, machine priorities, manpower estimation, man hours tracking, resource utilisation tracking, blending factors and overall reporting systems effectively. In few cases, ideal production planning systems could even integrate more than few job floors systematically.
Apart, as like in other industries, the die an mould segment also having the operational challenge as there is always a chance of pushing the dates or advance deliveries from customer side. In case of poor MRP in the design centre, the entire delivery model would lead to collapse of commitment. So, deserving effective planning tools to sustain these changes towards re-estimating new delivery dates are so important to buildcustomer satisfaction.
Turnkey approach: implementation made easy In case if a mouldmaker could try for integrated resource planning effectively, due to the availability of data in real time, it becomes easy for him to take critical decisions as he has visual tool to assist him.  Eventually, it leads to effective simulation during his design efforts according to concurrent customer inputs over phone. Beyond this design aspect, implementing more jobs through an integrated planning tool in a shop floor could create a benefit of winning additional orders as re-allocating resources, priorities and utilisation models are possible in phase with concurrent sales streams.
From design to shop floor: the robust touchBy and large, scheduling tools could result better material planning, manpower mapping and process integrations in a best of its way throughout the shop floor by allowing ground teams and supervisors to review the production plan instantly and to match the schedules and skill set of the employees.
So, by all means, an effective production planning system could lead to successful output models for any die and mould industry as it ensures an overall harmony between the internal system as well as the customer expectations to a major extend thereby exhibiting increased productivity and sustained quality commitments.
About the author This article has been written by K. Manickam, CEO of CAD Macro Design & Solutions Pvt Ltd, one of the major players in the CAD and CAM tool development space to support small and medium scale industries. It has more than 300 clients across India. The author can be reached at mani@cadmacro.com