I read an interesting blog from Pete Nelson and John Leibert on the subject above. With a decade and a half in MES projects behind me, I really don’t understand why this is even a question. It goes back to that old saw from the earliest days of computers:
GIGO – Garbage In, Garbage Out
What earthly good is an Advanced Planning & Scheduling system if you have no confidence in the status you receive from the shop floor? How nimble and agile can you be if your factory data is keyed in well after the event by some ERP clerk, or worse, lost in the shuffle? I was told by the plant manager of an electronics firm in Baltimore, “ERP can only tell me where I was”.
The key to any agile, nimble, robust APS implementation is that the data you make your decisions on is timely, accurate, and available. APS vendors understand this, it has to be part of the implementation process. Where is that data coming from? Is it reliable? Is it timely?
Otherwise? GIGO, my friends. GIGO
-RTR
