Product families can be a useful concept, but how often do we really look at how they should be utilized? In most established companies the product families may have been established years ago. The logic used back then may have been very sound and worked very well, so nobody may have ever questioned if there was a better way. After all, we all know the quote: “If it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it.”
Product family designations may sometimes be used primarily for financial reasons. The accountant wants to know the total value of Product Family 123 that was forecasted/built/sold. This data is a crucial metric to all companies, but is it really useful for manufacturing? If Product Family 123 is a collection of items that require processes across multiple work cells with no real consistency in flow, then operation managers cannot effectively or proactively use this data. It is just a reporting metric.
Product family analysis can be a powerful tool to determine work cell requirements, production flows and Kanban requirements. However, if our product families were established based on financial reasons or a loose set of parameters (i.e. Product QRS is ‘kinda’ like Product EFG, so I’ll put it in the same Product Family), then we may be setting ourselves up for some heartache. Plus, our database may now consist of thousands of part numbers that were set up this way. Who has time to go through all of this data and edit it properly?
Well, there is a tool out there that can help. Product Family Analysis in Areteium allows us to establish product families based upon item routings. Here’s how it works:
1. Areteium can show us a list of all current items, their currently assigned Family and their corresponding process (routing) requirements.
2. We can then choose a profile product to use as the ‘standard’ process flow.
3. Next, we can establish a new product family based upon the profile product’s process flow. We can even establish a percentage match for the new product family. The % match refers to the number of matching processes (i.e. routing steps)
4. The end result is a new list of items with proposed product families based upon common work flows.
We now have data in a format to allow us to make better decisions about:
- Work cell design
- Production Flow patterns
- Kanban designations by Family
Our data is an ever-changing, ever-evolving mountain of information. We need to be smart about how we can use this data to make better decisions. Product Family Analysis can be one of the tools we use, but we need to make sure we can tell the difference between the Hatfield and the McCoy’s.
About mcaConnect
Established in 2002, mcaConnect has grown into one of the largest US-based Microsoft Gold Certified Partners focused exclusively on delivering Microsoft Dynamics AX and CRM solutions and services to mid-market and enterprise-size manufacturing, energy, and distribution companies. Headquartered in Denver, CO, mcaConnect has offices throughout the world to support multi-national implementations.
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