The Facts About Scheduling Software
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
Protected Flow Manufacturing

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.

icon Protect Commitments

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.

icon Shop Floor Scheduling Made Easy

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.

icon Bring Scheduling and Visibility to Any ERP

Bring Scheduling and Visibility 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.

icon Increase Profitability

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.
icon Seamless Integration

Seamless Integration

PFM can seamlessly be integrated or embedded directly into your existing ERP system in order to augment and extend its functionality.

icon Easy to Set Up. Easy to Maintain.

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.

icon Anticipate Issues

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.

icon See the Future Before it Happens

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.

icon Optimize Large & Small Jobs

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.

icon Eliminate Expediting

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.

Why our customers refer us.
Video Poster

The results were immediate. We went from four weeks late to three weeks late to two weeks late to one week late. And now, I can look out one month and see that we’re going to be one day, two days late on this job, but on time for that job.

Val Zanchuk, President
Graphicast
Video Poster

We don’t "kick" all of the jobs to the shop floor at once like we used to. Putting too many jobs onto the shop floor prematurely burns up machine time. You utilize capacity before it needs to be used by putting all the jobs out on the shop floor at once.

Jeff Cederstrom, President
Arch Global Precision
Video Poster

In the first couple months using PFM, our concentration was to just get rid of the backlog of late orders. Now, since February 2018, we’ve run four months in a row where we’ve been 90% or better on time with all of the orders coming through the door. That’s a dramatic turnaround!

Rory Lee, Business Development Manager
Saturn Industries

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 ration of actual time to buffer time
  • The sum of different size buffers based on the operations required
Designed for your industry.
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Aerospace & Defense

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

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 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

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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Oil & Gas

Oil & Gas

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

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

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 Machinery & Equipment

Industrial Machinery & Equipment

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

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

Medical Device Manufacturing

WM 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

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

Process Manufacturing

As a process manufacturer, you have specific requirements when it comes to your manufacturing operations. Our ERP solutions make it easy to adjust formulas based on exacting manufacturing specifications and to monitor and respond to the evolving regulatory environments.
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Highlights
  • Tailor-make your formulations for maximum efficiency
  • QC activities management with industry-aligned compliance labeling & reports
  • Precision control over batch production, including by-products
  • Define and monitor losses at each stage
  • Dynamic ingredient adjustment to meet product objectives