Pattern
Pattern
Drive throughput, productivity, and profitability.
Meet customer deadlines by simplifying shop floor planning and execution with Protected Flow Manufacturing (PFM), which prevents work from being released too early, reduces the time jobs spend waiting, protects customer promise dates, and provides a clear priority for each operation.
It does so by accurately predicting when each job will arrive at a specific work center, monitoring risk, anticipating variability, and determining what needs to be worked on next.
Protect Commitments
PFM lets you make customer commitments with confidence. It does so by automatically adjusting the threat level (risk of being late) when unexpected variables arise to ensure all job deadlines are met.
Shop Floor Scheduling Made Easy
PFM provides a clear priority to each operation, without complex finite scheduling. Instead of trying to plan the use of each resource into future time periods, PFM dynamically in real time calculates the threat level (risk of being late) of every work order and uses it to prioritize work in the optimum way.
Bring Scheduling and Visiblity to Any ERP
PFM seamlessly integrates to your existing ERP. It enables better flow and improves on-time delivery to provide complete transparency between financial performance and production.
Increase Profitability
PFM enables you to capture more business, charge a premium for shorter lead times, and provides faster cash velocity — a shorter time between paying for materials and collecting from customers.
Pattern
Pattern
PFM provides the visibility and control you need to meet all of your commitments.
Seamless Integration
PFM can seamlessly be integrated or embedded directly into your existing ERP system in order to augment and extend its functionality.
Easy to Set Up. Easy to Maintain.
PFM does not require the high data accuracy and data maintenance of common schedulers. Its revolutionary approach allows you to quickly gain visibility over the status of every job and begin improving on-time delivery in a matter of days.
Anticipate Issues
Every shop has challenges. Common schedulers assume that everything will go as planned and quickly become out-of-date when it doesn’t. PFM knows that unexpected things will happen and dynamically adjusts resource assignments in real time as they happen.
See the Future Before it Happens
PFM not only clearly shows you how to execute work every day, it also simulates the future to show you what jobs are predicted to be late well before they are. This allows you to take the necessary steps to get them out on time.
Optimize Large & Small Jobs
Traditional scheduling will prioritize work by due date. PFM looks at due date and job duration to ensure that longer jobs are started on time (before shorter jobs that are due sooner). This optimizes resources across all jobs and delivers every job on time rather then just the one that is due soonest.
Eliminate Expediting
Expediting jobs is both time consuming and costly. PFM eliminates the need for it. By monitoring work completed across all jobs in real time, PFM knows which jobs to expedite without requiring manual analysis.
The Facts About Scheduling
81%
decrease in lead time from 16 to 3 weeks
3 Weeks
average time it takes to set up and implement PFM
66.7%
decrease in backlog after a few weeks
PFM's Core Features & Benefits
Real Time Shop Floor Execution
PFM’s foundation is its ability to prioritize work in real time rather then require you to run and re-run a schedule. This puts the latest, most accurate information into the hands of the people that need it. Job assignments are understood, trusted, and done in the right priority.
Predictive Analytics
Traditional scheduling solutions “assign” future capacity to jobs and then need to be re-run over and over as unplanned events happen. PFM instead “simulates” the use of your capacity and shows you what jobs are predicted to have problems and at what resources these problems may occur at. This gives you a clear picture of the future, which enables you to implement an action plan in order to deliver jobs on time.
Protective Time Buffers
PFM plans for unknown problems that can disrupt a static schedule. It does so by protecting the job with a time buffer that can be calculated based on:
- A ratio of actual time to buffer time
- The sum of different size buffers based on the operations required
How has Production Scheduling and Control changed over the last 240 years?
For all of you who have had long careers in Production Scheduling and Control or anyone who is just starting out in the field, Synergy has assembled this 240-year historical timeline of just how Production Scheduling and Control got started, and where it’s going.
Take this historical tour to understand the challenges that manufacturers have always had and the ways that people, computers, software, and new thinking have tried to solve them.
We welcome feedback and suggestions for additions or revisions. We hope you enjoy the trip!
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Aerospace & Defense
The aerospace, defense, space and security (A&D) industries are major contributors to our economy. They thrive if supported by scalable, industry specific applications. Synergy Resources’ applications and modules aid scientific and engineering talent in cutting-edge A&D industries. Synergy Resources helps you meet your goals faster-even while confronting escalating costs and market complexity.
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Highlights
- Engineering with CAD integration
- Engineering change control
- Specifications and data "flow down" for ITAR, DFAR, etc.
- Actual job costing
- Project Management with Earned Value Management and milestone reporting
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Automotive Manufacturing
As a manufacturer in the specialty vehicle industry, such as boats or emergency vehicles, you need a solution that can quickly respond to unique product configurations and accurately budget and manage actual costs associated with these jobs or projects. Infor VISUAL ERP is it!
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Highlights
- Configuration management
- Serial and lot control
- Design and engineering
- Capacity planning & scheduling (Lean, TOC, JIT)
- Actual costing
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Electronics & High-Tech
As a high tech or electronic manufacturer, you need control over component and finished goods inventory at the revision and tracking number level to efficiently and effectively service customers. Infor VISUAL ERP delivers the supply chain visibility to meet these demands and also offers comprehensive material and capacity planning functionality, which maximizes productivity.
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Highlights
- Alternate item on bill of materials (BOM)
- Item cross reference (supplier and manufacturer)
- Approved vendors and manufacturer lists
- Supply chain visibility with Web based portals
- Reference designators
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Energy Manufacturing
Synergy has a track record of implementing the right software, deploying efficient business processes, and developing the right metrics. This provides you with the insight and visibility you need into business operations and drives desired behaviors.
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Optimize People, Processes, & Technology.
- Strengthen Your Supply Chain
- Sophisticated Project Management
- Connect Service Efforts to Operations
- Localization & Financial Accounting Visibility
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Field Service, Maintenance & Repair
Revenue growth, customer satisfaction, and strategic goals around competitive differentiation are requiring field service and MRO organizations to rapidly transform. Manufacturing companies that once outsourced field service are seeing the growth and profit potential of an "insourced" aftermarket service team. Staying competitive with solutions that allow you to track costs, improve inventory availability, and take advantage of digital technologies such as IIoT, GPS, and predictive AI is not only advantageous, but necessary.
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Highlights
- Improve Customer Satisfaction & First Time Fix Rate
- Reduce Days Sales Outstanding (DSO)
- Optimize Routing of Field Service Techs
- Support for Depot Repair, Break-Fix & More
- Offer Managed Service Contracts
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Furniture & Fixtures
Today's customers demand that furniture and fixture manufacturers offer new product lines and custom options for existing products on demand. We can help you build speed and flexibility into your engineering and production processes so you can meet expectations.
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Highlights
- Industry Expert Partners
- Increase Quote Win Rate
- Improve Planning & Scheduling
- Cut Operational Costs
- Shorten Product Development Lifecycles
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Industrial Equipment & Machinery
If you're like most of our equipment manufacturer customers, you compete by selling a complete solution that includes aftermarket services, countless configuration options, and available spare parts. Our solutions have a broad set of capabilities to meet your unique challenges. You'll have the control and visibility you need throughout the entire product lifecycle.
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Gain a competitive edge and extend your aftermarket offerings.
- Win More Business
- Meet Customer Delivery Expectations
- Increase Velocity of Spare Part Sales
- Collaborate With Suppliers & Customers
- Leave Your Competitors Behind
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Industrial Manufacturing
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Highlights
- End-to-end customer relationship, sales, purchasing, performance, and financial management
- Estimating with multiple quantity breaks
- Integrated capacity planning (Lean, TOC, JIT) with unlimited "what-if" scenarios
- Material planning with real-time visibility of demand and supply
- Cost control (actual, average, standard)
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Medical Device Manufacturing
Synergy's Continuous Improvement teams have helped medical device manufacturers to increase productivity both in the office and on the shop floor. Our ERP products enable employees to complete assigned tasks faster and make more products without increasing costs.
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Highlights
- End-to-end customer relationship, sales, purchasing, performance, and financial management
- Estimating with multiple quantity breaks
- Integrated capacity planning (Lean, TOC, JIT) with unlimited "what-if" scenarios
- Material planning with real-time visibility of demand and supply
- Cost control (actual, average, standard)
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Metal, Glass, & Plastic Fabrication
Our ERPs are purpose-built for MTO, ETO, CTO/ATO, MTS, and mixed-mode manufacturing companies. The end-to-end solutions helps manufacturers like you increase efficiency, accurately manage cost position, meet and exceed customer expectations, and accelerate growth.
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Highlights
- Purpose-Built ERP
- Estimate with Confidence
- Improve Delivery Performance
- Paperless Real-Time Shop Floor Data Collection
- The Right Materials at the Right Time
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Process Manufacturing
As a food, beverage, chemical, or life science manufacturer, you have specific requirements when it comes to your manufacturing operations. Infor CloudSuite Process makes it easy to adjust formulas based on exacting manufacturing specifications and to monitor and respond to the evolving regulatory environment.
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Highlights
- Flexible Formula Management
- Stay On Top of Quality Requirements & Regulations
- Build a Better Batch
- Lot Recall
- Process Workbench
Related Resources
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