How Fraction ERP can save you two hours per day
Saving time is a challenge that most of us want to overcome.
If you are running a factory, is there a way you can do this via ERP?
The short answer is yes! I've (Giles) done this personally and in this article I am going to share with you how you can do this too. I actually went a bit further than two hours per day... but that's another story for another day!
Below are several strategies that can help you save time from your busy day.
Save time using BoM templates
In Fraction ERP we can help save time when creating new products using our BoM templates function. If you have a family of similar products you can create variants at the touch of a button.
This can save a lot of time and reduce errors.
Two stage scheduling
If you spend a lot of your time moving your production orders around (on a spreadsheet or an existing ERP system) this can really drain your time and energy.
We've adopted a two stage scheduling process in Fraction ERP. First you carry out rough cut planning, dumping your production operations into week sized buckets. As you get closer to your production window, you can firm up when exactly you will undertake the operations.
Instead of moving your orders around repeatedly, you can carry out your scheduling in two slick moves. I know from personal experience that this can save a lot of time.
Our visual scheduling board
Shop Floor Data Collection (SFDC)
When you work with your shop floor team to capture information about progress made with production orders, the time you need to spend chasing orders around the shop floor drop massively.
Fraction ERP has a number of shop floor tracking options. These include the high level works order view and the detailed SFDC screen (which shows you who is on what operation and how much time they have left).
We've taken SFDC a step further in our subscriptions too. SFDC users are free with our paid subscriptions, so you don't have to worry about an expanding shop floor team when you sign up with Fraction ERP.
Tracking live operations via Fraction ERP
Sunrise Meetings
Bringing your team together in a very focused way, to ensure that everything is on track, can save time over the course of a day (and weeks / months). By avoiding fires in the first place, you can spend less time with the extinguisher!
Our interactive dashboard allows you to ask the right questions of your team and drill down the data you need.
A short Sunrise Meeting (less than ten minutes) can be worth its weight in gold and is a great strategy to saving you time.
The interactive dashboard in Fraction ERP
Effective task management
Tying in with the Sunrise Meeting approach, and general management, our task management tool can help take the guesswork out of running your business.
We've made the tool flexible so you can use it across your business. Capturing key tasks, that will prevent problems in the future, is a brilliant way to save time from your working day.
Reminding people of the tasks that they haven't completed is not a good use of your time!
Task management screen in Fraction ERP
Strategic and improvement projects
When you use the above tools to improve your grip on your business, you can then start to focus on other matters in your business. When this focus lands on strategic projects and continuous improvement, you have the opportunity to start moving up through the gears.
Incremental and step changes can take your business forward in ways that you sometimes can't imagine. Tripling turnovers, slashing lead times, industry recognition etc...
Saving time doesn't have to be a huge project, or require a massive shift in focus. You can start small. One small improvement, that makes your life a little easier, can be built upon. That is the intention of Fraction ERP. We want to help you make a few changes in your business that can grow to have huge impact in the future.
Free two week trial
To help you evaluate Fraction ERP we offer a free two week trial.
We recommend that you get in touch to arrange a free online demo, so we can show you the basics of our cloud ERP system and then you can take it from there. Putting a few orders through an ERP system is one of the best ways to work out if it is going to be a good fit for your business.
To arrange your free demo, simply fill in the form below.
In the meantime, good luck with finding opportunities to free up time from your working day. I've been through this path as a Production Manager in the past and I know it is possible.