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Lean. Quiet. Seamless. |
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Lean. Quiet. Seamless. |
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| Home | Purpose | Business Problems | Product Process Matrix | Origins | Publications |
| Design Principles | Product Description | Business Application | Business Impact | Technical | Contact |
| Business Problems |
| The significant Business Problems being addressed are principally those of human communication and product - process evolution. The latter is addressed in the section on the product - process matrix. This section is concerned with barriers to communication and the consequent loss of business efficiency and effectiveness.. |
| Across Time Frames and Organisation |
| The
communication need, to communicate across planning time frames and
between business disciplines, is outlined in the matrix below.
Planning and scheduling is a continuous negotiation between interested parties. Communications across consistent information is essential to effective and efficient negotiation. Epicycles believes that there are barriers to communications erected whenever differences occur in the software and models used in each part of the organisation and time frame. Although it is technically feasible to connect and integrate the models, the barriers of language and interpretation remain. These barriers to communication inhibit the speed with which the impact of decisions can be seen, understood and reacted to throughout the matrix. As Supply Chain thinking evolves the apparent complexity of the chain becomes greater, planners and schedulers are expected to take more factors into account when making decisions, this further exacerbates communication problems. The outcome is either decisions which fail to reduce inventories as expected, fail to accelerate throughput, and fail to provide the necessary customer service and lead times, or, an ever increasing workload for planners and schedulers. |
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| Epicycles has
taken the approach that the decision making process in all time frames
and all disciplines is more similar than different. The underlying
production process and product mix are the same, that planners and
schedulers need a different view of the same process not different
systems or functionality.
What is different is the time frame over which people need to view information and the level of detail required as execution is approached. That is quite different to providing different functionality for each time frame and discipline. Paradoxically this leads to a greater richness of software functionality for all. A simple example is in sequencing of orders, often seen as the last step before execution. The general concept of sequencing can be applied to the strategic plan if required, or the arrival of ships at a wharf, or the loading of the ship, or the payments schedule in accounts payable, or, of course, the shift production schedule. Essentially the communication which is predominantly about "which products should we make for whom, when?" is not obfuscated and confused by "my model different to yours" and "I can't do that in my bit of the system". The impact of change by one person is immediately visible to all. The communication is seamless. |
| Conclusion |
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The improvements in communication
available from applying the same simple model across multiple
disciplines and time frames extend through the complete system project
life cycle, from design and development, through training and
implementation, into use. Not only is negotiation and decision making
better supported but iIt follows that there is a considerably lower
system life cycle cost.
One outcome of this rethink in systems development is the potential for considerable business process redesign. We can help, but that's really for you to decide. |
© 2006 Epicycles Pty. Ltd. - All Rights Reserved. Last updated 2 Feb 2007
