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Industry case studies

Manufacturing data

Example industry study

Clean part data before you automate anything

Most shops we talk to have the same part in their ERP three or four times under different numbers, BOMs that drifted from what the floor actually builds, and routings nobody has updated in years. People work around it with spreadsheets and memory. Cleaning that data is usually the first fix, and it makes every fix after it work.

01

Situation

  • The same part exists under several numbers, so engineering creates new ones instead of finding the old.
  • BOMs in the ERP no longer match what gets built, so purchasing and scheduling work from bad counts.
  • Job costs are guessed because routings and run times are out of date.

02

Approach

  • Pull the item master, BOMs and routings and measure how much is duplicated, missing or wrong.
  • Fix the records that touch the most jobs first, with your engineers deciding what is a true duplicate.
  • Set simple rules so new parts get checked before a number is issued.

03

What to check

  • How many active part numbers describe the same physical part?
  • Do the BOMs in your ERP match what was built on the last ten jobs?
  • Can you trust the job cost on a quote you sent last month?

What the numbers say

Every figure says where it comes from. Vendor claims are marked as vendor claims.

98%

BOM accuracy the classic MRP II Class A standard calls for. Inventory records: 95% or better.

Industry standardOliver Wight ABCD Checklist, as used in MRP II training

65%

Share of inventory records that were wrong in a large measured study of a leading retailer. Manufacturing data gets less attention, not more.

MeasuredDeHoratius & Raman, Management Science, 2008

3–8%

Exact duplicates in a typical material master, rising to about 15% when near-duplicates are counted.

Vendor claimAutoma.Net

$15,000

Rough lifetime cost of carrying one new part number, in an example reported from PTC.

Vendor claimMDUX, reporting a PTC example

Try it on sample data

Find the duplicate parts hiding in your ERP

A sample part list with the same bolt under three numbers, mixed units and missing costs. One click groups the duplicates, shows why they match, and flags prices that do not agree.

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Put a dollar figure on one repetitive job

Enter the people and hours behind drawings, quoting or inspection paperwork, and see what the work costs a year.

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Good to know

An example, not a client story.

An example built from what we see in manufacturing and from published figures. It is not a client story.

How we would do it

The steps behind this work.

Every study follows the same steps: find the bottleneck, redesign the work, test the fix, and keep the math where you can check it.