Education and Training Courses 2008

To support Lean and Agile Manufacturing Planning and Control including capacity and inventory / stock / work in process (WIP) management, implementation of Just in Time (JIT), Kanban, Master Production Scheduling (MPS), Rough Cut Capacity Planning (RCCP), Advanced Planning & Scheduling (APS), Materials Requirements Planning (MRP1)/ Manufacturing Resources Planning (MRPII), Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP), Shop Floor Control, and Managing Product & Process Data.

Our Training Philosophy and Approach

The following 24 training courses (indexed to details below) are available. They can be readily tailored to suit individual requirements for in-house workshops.

To discuss your consulting or training needs with one of our independent consultants or trainers please Contact Us.

More Best Practice and Training Links below

Manufacturing Course Summaries

M01 Designing, Implementing and Operating Kanban Systems (2 days) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for Kanban system designers and implementation project teams,  team leaders / department heads of manufacturing, this detailed course will enable you to design, implement and maintain your own Kanban systems. It will also enable you to answer the following questions:

• Which type of Kanban system should you choose (There are 8 types)?
• How to design Kanban systems including:
  • How do you define process relationships to make Kanban simple to use?
  • How do you calculate Kanban quantities?
  • Where do you position buffers?
  • What should the signalling mechanism be?
• How should Kanban be integrated:
  • With planning?
  • What are the accounting implications?
• How do you implement the system?
  • What are the people implications?
  • How do you choose your first situation?
  • How do you sell the idea to operations staff? (Includes M22a below)
• How do you maintain a Kanban system?
• Or as one of our recent course participants commented, "I didn't realise there was so much you could learn about Kanban."

Note 1: A MS Excel template for calculating required Kanban population sizes is supplied with the course.

Note 2: A copy of our Kanban & Lean Simulation Game toolkit (see M22a below) is included with this course.

Note 3: A complete nine day in-house task force lean manufacturing training programme is available which incorporates the above with content from a number of our other courses for the reorganisation of manufacturing under JIT and Lean principles.

M02 Advanced Scheduling Systems (APS) (1 day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for all levels of production planning and inventory management personnel, this detailed course, which is software independent, discusses scheduling from first principles up to advanced techniques and will enable you to answer the following questions:

• What are the 11 degrees of scheduling sophistication, which one do I need and how do I justify it?
• What are the underpinning principles of scheduling?
• What is APS and in what circumstances should you use it or not use it?
• What should your approach be (defining your problem)?
• How do you design the model?
• How do you create & maintain the data?
• How do you implement the system?
• What are the prerequisites?
• How do you operate the system?

M03 Bill of Materials and Routings Design & Management (1 day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for all levels of product design, inventory management, production planning personnel and teams responsible for ERP / MRP implementation, this detailed course will enable you to design and implement your own simple Bill of Materials and Routings to satisfy the potentially conflicting needs of design, materials planning, capacity planning, work in process tracking, product costing, inventory accounting, service and repair. It will also enable you to answer the following questions:

• How is Product and Process Data used in planning and control systems such as MRP?
• How do you design your Bill of Material and what is the relationship between Bills of Materials and Routings?
• How do you design your Routings? What level of detail is necessary?
• How do you manage product and process changes to provide rapid implementation but with safeguards to minimise disruption and obsolescence?
• How do you design a version control system for changes in products and processes?
• What are the implications for version control on lot traceability and implementation of change?
• How do you implement such a system?

M04 Participative Master Production Scheduling (PMPS) (1 day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for all stakeholders in the planning process including sales managers, operations managers, supplies / purchasing managers, and planners, this detailed course focused on the design of the process rather than the capacity model, will enable you to design and implement your own Sales and Operations Planning, and Master Production Scheduling systems and answer the following questions:

• What is Sales and Operations Planning, Master Production Scheduling and Shop Scheduling and what is the relationship between them?
• How do you design and create a production planning process that delivers products on time and at short lead-time but also manages resources effectively?
• How do you manage seasonal or variable demand?
• What size should batches be?
• How do you avoid complex scheduling systems?
• How do you manage the introduction of new products into production?
• How do you implement an MPS system?

Note 1: This course is also available as an in-house workshop. When run with all the stakeholders in the room it produces an outline design and implementation task list. M05 below complements this course.

Note 2:  This course assumes a passive role of the management of the sales process. Our course SSC08 Participative Sales & Operations Planning in addition assumes an active Sales Management Process (i.e. Sales Planning) driven by the Sales & Operations Planning process.

M05 Simple Capacity Planning & Control (1 day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for Master Production Schedulers, planners and operations team leaders and firmly following lean principles, this detailed course will enable you to create, implement and operate your own simple capacity management process incorporating simple tools to enable you to answer the following questions:

• How do you create a simple capacity model and what are the procedures for maintaining it?
• How to avoid scheduling complexity?
• How do load, capacity and lead-time interact?
• What is the role of Rough Cut Capacity Planning (RCCP) in operations planning?
• What is the role of "Takt" time in operations planning and control and balancing process capacity?
• How do you quickly check if you have the capacity available to deliver the jobs when required and make accurate promises to customers? (What is "available to promise")
• How do you control capacity?

  And last but not least: How do you get more output for free?

Note 1: Includes our MS Excel capacity modelling starter pack which is used to show how to manage capacity.

Note 2: M04 above complements this course.

M06 Stock & Work in Process (WIP) Management (1 day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for all levels of inventory and operations personnel and teams responsible for ERP / MRP implementation, this detailed course, which is independent of software, will enable you to support accurate stores and work in process tracking processes and enable you to answer the following questions:

• Why is inventory tracking necessary?
• How do you design a system that keeps track of your stock and WIP accurately?
• How do you manage work in process properly?
• How do you install the disciplines necessary to maintain accurate stock records?
• How do you create a development task list to manage inventory well for your site?

Note 1: A companion course for pure warehouse operations is SSC06 Warehouse Operations Management

Note 2: M17 Stock & WIP Tracking for Beginners below provides a short introduction to this topic for beginners (available only as an in-house workshop).

Below are three MRP Training Courses, from beginner MRP1 to advanced MRP2:

M07 MRP for beginners (½ day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed as an introduction to MRP systems and as a means of educating everyone connected with an MRP system, this detailed course, which is independent of software, aims to provide an understanding of how MRP logic works and the importance of procedures and disciplines to maintain data accuracy. It will enable you to answer the following questions:

• What is MRP and what is the difference between MRP1 and MRP2?
• When should these systems be used?
• How does MRP do the sums?
• What is the data used to perform the calculations and how is it maintained?
• What are the essential requirements of an MRP system?
• How do your actions affect the effective working of an MRP1 system?

Note 1: An MRP1 simulation model is used to illustrate the effects of data in the system.

Note 2: This course forms the first half day of M08 below.

M08 Material Requirements Planning (MRP1) (1 day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for all levels of planning, inventory management and operations staff and especially for teams responsible for ERP / MRP implementation, or trying to improve MRP performance, this detailed course, which is independent of software, aims to provide a detailed understanding of MRP1 design and implementation considerations. It will enable you to answer the following questions:

• When should these systems be used?
• How do you design an MRP 1 system?
• Why do MRP systems often fail?
• What are the critical success factors?
• How do you implement an MRP 1 system?
• How do you maintain an MRP 1 system?
• How does all this help to manage your materials?

Note: The first half day of this course is M07 above.

 M09 Manufacturing Resources Planning (MRP2) (1 day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for all levels of planning, inventory management and operations staff and especially for teams responsible for ERP / MRP implementation, or trying to improve MRP performance, this detailed course, which is independent of software, aims to provide a detailed understanding of MRP2 design and implementation considerations. It will enable you to answer the following questions:

• When should these systems be used?
• How do you design an MRP 2 system?
• How do you implement an MRP 2 system?
• How do you maintain an MRP 2 system?
• How does all this help to manage your materials and capacity?
• How do you manage the "work-to" list?

Note: M08 is a prerequisite for this course.

M10 Simple Stock Control (1 day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed in conjunction with M11 (below) for all levels of inventory management and operations staff and especially for teams responsible for implementation of simple or lean and visual materials control systems, this detailed course, which is independent of software, aims to provide a detailed understanding of the design and implementation considerations of these systems. It will enable you to answer the following questions:

• What are the following systems?
  • Re-order Point (ROP)
  • 2/3 Bin Systems
  • Replacement Systems
  • Deliver to point of use
  • Vendor managed inventory
  • Visual stock control systems
• When should these systems be used?
• How do you design these systems?
• How do you calculate safety stock, batch sizes, reorder points and Max / Min stock levels?
• How do you implement these systems?
• How do you maintain these systems?
• How does all this help to manage your materials?
• Visual controls: what are the 30 ways of gaining simple, eyeball control?

Note: Contains content from SSC03 Inventory Modelling using spreadsheets

M11 Simple Ways To Maximise Output & Workflow (1 day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed in conjunction with M10 (above) for team leaders, operations staff and teams responsible for improving operations performance & useful for operations planning personnel. This course draws on content from both M05, & M23 courses on this page, and SSC04 Production Planning & Control Back to Basics (from the strategic supply chain management course page, see below) this detailed course, which firmly follows lean principles, shows you how to avoid expensive software, will enable you to design and implement your own simple operations planning and control systems and will enable you to answer the following questions:

• How do you simplify workflow?
• What are the five methods of making work flow & minimising work in process?
• What are the two methods of maximising output (without using a whip)
• What are the Capacity 4S's?
• How do you schedule work simply using bottleneck scheduling?
• What is the Theory of Constraints (TOC) and how can you use that to create simple scheduling processes?
• What is "drum, buffer, rope", and how do you use it to manage operations?
• What is the "best operations method" & how can you prove that (introduction to the design of experiments / Taguchi methods)
• What is the most effective processing sequence?
• What is the most effective way of prioritising work?
• How can set-up time be reduced by sequencing work better and applying "SMED" principles
• How do you design and implement a simple Loading (Planning) Board (manual or electronic)?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of loading boards?
• Introduction to Pull / Kanban systems (introduction of principles only, from M01 above)

Note: This course draws on content from M01, M05, M10 above, M23 below, and SSC04 Production Planning & Control Back to Basics

M12 Capital Goods (Project) Manufacturing (2 days) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed specifically for engineer to order, & make to order, this detailed course is suitable for all levels of personnel and especially for teams responsible for systems implementation or BPR. It aims to provide a detailed understanding of the design and implementation considerations of the complete capital project life cycle processes from design, procurement, manufacturing and through to installation and commissioning. It will enable you to answer the following questions:

• How do you reduce lead-time and manage costs which ensuring quality?
• How do you manage the design process?
• How do you plan for good quality?
• How do you plan and control materials including consumables and fittings?
• How do you plan and control costs?
• How do you plan and control capacity?
• How do you implement project-based planning and control systems in engineer-to-order and make-to-order environments?
• How do you manage the build process?
• What can IT systems do to help?
• Why standard MRP logic is less suitable for capital goods manufacturing and make-to-order environments?

M13 Manufacturing Accounting (1 day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed specifically for junior, unqualified, finance, support staff working in a manufacturing environment or team leaders, or others wishing to understand the principles underpinning their finance systems, this detailed course will enable you to:

• Understand your budget
• Understand product costing
• Understand overheads and how they are accounted for
• How variance accounting works

Topics covered include:

• Understanding budgets & management accounts
  • The purpose of costing; Cost objects; Cost granularity (level of detail); Accuracy / direct / indirect costs; Identifying fixed and variable costs; Which cost to worry about (Pareto analysis)
• Product costing
  • Separate fixed & variable costs; Standard Costs & Actual costs; Manufacturing strategy and the effect on accounting Cost Elements Materials Materials Overheads Sub contracting Labour Fixed Overhead Variable overhead
  • The way ERP systems calculate product costs: Cost roll up Std. vs. actual The implications for estimating new work
• Management accounts
  • The Role Management Accounts Structures Adding Value Actual Costs & Variances Absorbing Overheads Variance Analysis (Explaining the reasons) Budgetary control & Variance
• Financial accounts
  • Accounting treatment of variance
  • Stock gains & Losses

   

M14 Lean & Agile Manufacturing Detail (Pick & Mix) (1-9 days) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

This detailed set of topics is available as a pick and mix selection:

• Lean & Agile Products and Product Development Processes (1 day)
• Lean & Agile Processes and Process Development (1 day)
• Lean & Agile Materials Planning & Control (1 day)
• Lean & Agile Capacity Planning & Control (1 day)
• Lean & Agile Supply Chains (1 day)
• The KISS principle, Lean & Agile Operations Support and Administration (1 day)
• Implementing & Running Leanness and Agility, Staying Lean & Agile (1 day)
• Lean & Agile Culture, Selling the Concept Internally (1 day)
• Applying the Knowledge to develop your own change programme (1 day)

 M15 Agile Manufacturing Overview (1 day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

This executive overview course aimed at all aspects of manufacturing businesses, (not specifically at the manufacturing process), is intended to provide a road map to an Agile business and will enable you to answer the following questions:

• What are the key features of an Agile Business?
• How do I create a task list to develop an Agile business and prioritise it?
• What are the important techniques used to create an Agile Business?

Note 1: This course includes a copy of our unique 92 point agility self diagnosis, to enable you to create your own Agile implementation task list.

Note 2: Also see M14 above

 M16 Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) (1 day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed to overcome the difficulty businesses experience in implementing ERP systems and most importantly how to leverage the benefits from the implementation and suitable for all levels of planning, control, and accounting staff and especially for teams responsible for ERP implementation, this detailed course, which is independent of software, aims to provide a detailed understanding of ERP design and implementation considerations. It will enable you to plan your implementation properly and answer the following questions:

• What is ERP?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of ERP?
• Are all ERP systems the same? (incorporates control systems theory)
• What are the common causes of failure of ERP systems?
• How do I lever the business benefit from the implementation? (Includes an overview of Business Process Re-engineering) (See Step Change Training of "S02 Business Process Re-engineering Detail" and on Business Process Re-engineering) (links below)
• What should the implementation strategy be? (Regardless of software)?
• What are the key stages?
• How do you set up the IT infrastructure?

M17 Stock & WIP Tracking for Beginners (½ day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for the novice or newcomer to managing inventory, warehouse and shop floor materials control personnel, and as a critical mass awareness workshop in MRP implementations this course will enable you to answer the following questions:

• Why is stock management important?
• What are the typical problems and solutions to these?
• Why is accurate stock and work in process recording essential?
• What are the key features of warehouse management?
• What are the criteria for setting and maintaining stock levels?
• What are the 10 rules for maintaining stock accuracy?
• What techniques can be used to improve inventory accuracy?

Note 1: A companion course for pure warehouse operations is SSC06 Warehouse Operations Management

Note 2: A one day detailed & more advanced version of this course is available in M06 Stock & WIP Management above, which should be viewed as a follow-on course for novices.

M18 Managing Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (2 days) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for recently appointed maintenance supervisors, maintenance personnel aspiring to this role, maintenance administrators and teams responsible for implementing best practice in maintenance, repair and overhaul, this detailed course, aims to provide an understanding of maintenance best practice and implementation. It will enable you to answer the following questions:

• Which items should be repaired & which remanufactured
• How do you organise maintenance?
• What are the important characteristics of maintenance?
• How do you plan and control maintenance activity and spares?
• What measures of performance are appropriate?
• What is preventative maintenance and how do you get a programme started?
• What is "Total Productive Maintenance" (TPM) and how do you get it started?
• What are the economics of repair?
• How can IT help maintenance?

M19 How to Become a World Class Manufacturer (1 day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for all levels of management, and especially for teams responsible for World Class implementation programmes, this overview course, aims to provide an understanding of what world class is and a route map to achieve it. It will enable you to answer the following questions:

• What are the characteristics of leading companies?
• How do you develop a development process?
• What are World Class products?
• How do you reduce time to market?
• What are Lean and Agile processes?
• What are Lean and Agile supply chains? (overview of SSC07 Strategic Supply Chains)
• How do you Implement a World Class program? (Includes an overview of S05 World Class Change Management)
• How do you stay World Class?
• How do you implement sustainable improvement?

M20 Lean Business Overview (1 day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for all of the management team (not just operations) and especially for teams responsible for Lean Manufacturing implementation, this overview course aims to provide an understanding of Lean Business design and implementation considerations. It will enable you to answer the following questions:

• Why "Lean" does not mean "Mean", nor simply waste reduction, and certainly applies to all functions, not just operations?
• How do you define waste? (The 3 enemies of leanness and 21 ways to recognise them)
• What are the principles, values and benefits of Lean Businesses?
  • Lean products and product development
  • Lean operations
  • Lean materials planning (The fourteen principles of lean materials planning)
  • Lean capacity planning  & control
  • Lean supply chains
  • Lean administration (Why lean does not just apply to the shop floor?
• What are the design principles and problems of Just in Time?
• How can you design and implement visual control systems

Note: Also see M14 above

M21 Lean Manufacturing Detail (2 Days) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed especially for teams responsible for Lean Manufacturing implementation in the operations areas, and personnel expected to contribute to the implementation, this detailed course aims to provide practical instruction in designing and implementing lean practices and processes in operations. It will enable you to answer the following questions:

• What is leanness?
• How can it be achieved?
• Popular myths of Lean Manufacturing
• What are the six drivers of performance?
• What are the 21 wastes?
• How can simple visual controls replace complex control systems?
• Focused improvement systems (overview of C01 Focused Improvement Systems)
• What are the six steps to perfect quality?
• Why prevention is better than inspection?
• What are the 12 basic tools of process improvement and how do you use them to:
  • Understand the purpose of the process?
  • Understand the main contributing reasons for poor performance?
  • Decide the priorities?
  • Find the root causes?
  • Understand the 5 S's and what it means in English? (overview) (See OM03 (below) for detail)
• How do you create a lean vision? What will lean look like?

Note 1: A one day overview of lean manufacturing is available as an in-house workshop.

Note 2: Also see M14 above

M22a Kanban and Lean Enterprise Simulation Game (1 Day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

One step beyond the stickle-brick and beer games, this toolkit allows to create a more persuasive Kanban and Lean Enterprise Simulation Game by simulating your own products and processes. Designed for Kanban & Lean implementation teams and specifically as a "train the trainer" workshop for onwards delivery to explain to shop floor personnel why Kanban / Lean is beneficial , this one-day course, which includes a free copy of the Kanban & Lean Simulation Tool kit (described below) will enable you to discover for yourself:

• How do Kanban systems work?
• What are the benefits of Kanban systems?
• How our game can be adapted to represent your products and processes to provide your people with relevant and powerful messages on the benefits of:
  • Kanban
  • Lean manufacturing
  • Cellular Manufacturing
  • Team working
  • Continuous improvement

 The Simulation Game Tool Kit made up of five parts:

1. A Project Plan
2. A Product and Process Design Guide (to enable you to adapt our sample product and process to mimic your environment)
3. Instructions for Trainers (running the game)
4. A starter pack set of PowerPoint slides, which you can adapt to suit your training message.
5. Instructions of how to adapt the game to reinforce the team working, cellular manufacturing, continuous improvement, and lean enterprise, messages.

M23 Capacity Management (2 Days) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for operations planning personnel, team leaders and supervisors, this detailed, introductory, course will enable you to design and implement your own capacity management processes and evaluate the applicability of different capacity planning and control options including APS systems to your situation. It will also answer the following questions and many more:

• What are the symptoms of common capacity problems?
• What is "Takt" time, and how is it used to balance processes or manage demand?
• How do you turn a business plan into a capacity plan?
• What are the weaknesses of budgeting from a capacity planning viewpoint?
• What is sales and operations planning and how does it plan both sales and operations?
• How do you construct contingency plans for capacity failure?
• How should you structure your capacity planning process?
• What factors influence the design of a master production scheduling process?
• Which of the eleven major capacity planning techniques are available and how do you choose?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of "Advanced Planning & Scheduling" (APS) systems?
• How do you ensure supplier capacity, and plan supplier workloads?
• How do you simplify capacity planning and scheduling?
• How do you construct simple capacity models?
• How do you cope with demand variation?
• What are the routine operational processes of managing capacity?
• What are the 10 deadly scheduling sins and how do I avoid them?
• How do you improve throughput times?
• What is "bandwidth", "finite scheduling", "backward scheduling", and "close scheduling", and why should I care?
• What is the best prioritisation rule "least slack", "shortest operation first" or something else?
• Why are "calibration" and "standard working" so important to capacity planning?
• What is "SMED" (overview of M11 above)?
• How do you control capacity?
• What are the key elements of implementing a capacity management process?

And last but not least: How do you get more output for free?

Note: This course includes content from courses M02, M04, M05, M11 above, SSC08 Sales & Operations Planning & S04 Strategic Capacity Management.

M24 Materials Management & Stock Control (3 days) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for operations planning personnel, team leaders and supervisors, this detailed, introductory, course will enable you to maintain good materials management practice to consistently deliver excellent customer service with minimum effort and inventory. It includes overviews of current best practice thinking in materials planning and control systems and provides introductions to the most popular and effective ones. It will also enable you to answer the following questions:

• What are the key prerequisites of good materials management?
• What are the fundamentals of requirements of materials planning systems?
• What is the interaction between materials and capacity management?
• What types of materials planning and control systems are available and how do you choose?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of push and pull systems?
• What is lean manufacturing and how does it relate to your business?
• What is agile manufacturing and how does it relate to your business?
• How do you manage stock and Work in Process (WIP) at minimum levels and still provide excellent customer service?
• How do you calculate safety stock, safety time, reorder points, and Kanban population sizes?
• How do MRP, Kanban, 2 Bin, Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI), Reorder Point, and visual control systems work and how do you make them work better?
• How do you measure and drive improvement in materials management performance?

And last but not least: How do you increase on-time delivery and reduce inventory simultaneously!

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A number of our Strategic Supply Chain Management courses & Step Change & Operations Management  including OM03 Organising & Managing The Workplace courses are also relevant to manufacturing companies.

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To discuss your consulting or training needs with one of our independent consultants or trainers please Contact Us.

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Ó SM Thacker & Associates (Consultancy and Training Specialists) Original Jan 2000. Version 11 December 2007