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ASR (Replenishment) Materials and Supply Chain Control

  • Forecast inaccuracies?
  • Frequent materials shortages?
  • High premium freight expenses?
  • Poor fill rates?
  • Conflicts between Planning, Purchasing and Manufacturing?
What would these numbers mean in your environment?
  • Fill-Rates ▲ to 99.6% (from 84%)
  • Sales ▲20%
  • Inventory Levels ▼60%

Results reported by Oregon Freeze Dry on Mountain House Division after 12 full months of implementation.

Actively Synchronized Replenishment (ASR) builds upon the traditional replenishment approach of replacing what was taken to create a dynamic and effective pull-based solution to answer the challenges of today’s manufacturing landscape. In addition, through a new approach in materials planning and execution, ASR is designed to directly tie material availability and supply to ACTUAL consumption. This is a prerequisite to effectively utilize pull-based scheduling and execution methods like Lean and Drum-Buffer-Rope (DBR).

ASR has four main components:
  1. Strategic Inventory Positioning
  2. Dynamic Buffer Level Profiling and Maintenance
  3. Pull-Based Demand Generation
  4. Highly Visible and Collaborative Execution
Download the whitepaper on ASR, "Beyond MRP" here.

A Complete ASR Solution Package
Client Results with ASR and Replenishment+™
ASR versus MRP – A Head to Head Comparison
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A Complete ASR Solution Package

Constraints Management Group (CMG) offers a complete ASR Materials and Supply Chain Control solution made up of three components:
  • ASR Consulting Services – ASR Education, ASR Design and Modeling Facilitation, On-site Support and Follow-up Audits, ASR Metrics and Incentives Facilitation
  • Proven ASR Compliant Software – Replenishment+™ (R+™)
  • Software Implementation Services – Software Modeling, Interface Design and Support, Software Training for all levels of appropriate personnel, Conference Room Pilot Facilitation and "Go-Live" Support.
ASR Consulting Services
CMG has successfully implemented ASR in a variety of manufacturing environments and complexities, including large vertically integrated $1+ billion enterprises. Whether you organization has 600 part records or 600,000, CMG can guide your organization through implementing a robust and sustainable ASR system that connects actual customer pull through the entire enterprise and supplier base.

Replenishment+™ is a uniquely powerful solution to the compromises and ineffectiveness of MRP in today’s manufacturing environment. It effectively facilitates pull-based materials and supply chain management throughout a manufacturing enterprise (Purchasing, Bill of Materials, and Fulfillment/Distribution). Web-based demonstrations are easy to schedule and take about 1 hour. If you are located outside of the United States, contact us to find an Authorized Service Provider in your area.

Through proprietary design, Replenishment+™ allows users to easily MODEL, PLAN and then easily EXECUTE (View, Manage, Collaborate) an ASR solution in their environment.

Click here for more details on Replenishment+™.


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R+™

ASR Versus MRP – A Head to Head Comparison

ASR is a powerful pull-based solution for Materials and Supply Chain Management. By strategically positioning inventory protection with dynamic, actively controlled and managed, independently planned buffers, ASR decouples the cascading effects of variation throughout a manufacturing system from Purchasing, through the Bill of Materials and into fulfillment.

ASR buffers are not mountains of inventory or Min-Max stock points. They are strategically placed, dynamically sized, actively managed and replenished based on ACTUAL demand pull.

Typical MRP Attributes ASR Components
PLANNING ATTRIBUTES MRP uses a forecast or master production schedule as an input to calculate parent and component level part net requirements. Part planning becomes based on a "push" created by these projected demand requirements. arrow ASR uses known and planned part traits to set only the initial buffer size levels. These buffer sizes are dynamically resized based on real demand and variability.

Buffer levels are replenished as actual demand forces buffers into their respective rebuild zones.
MRP pegs down the ENTIRE Bill of Material to the lowest component part level whenever available stock is less than exploded demand. arrow Component part requirements are calculated by pegging down through the bill of material. However this planning is decoupled at any buffered component part that is independently managed by an ASR buffer. This prevents the tsunami wave from rippling throughout the company like it did under MRP when a disruption occurs.
MRP allows the release of work orders to the shop floor without consideration of component parts availability. arrow Projected available stock for component part requirements is verified prior to work order release to insure work is not released to the floor if parts are not available.
Lead time for parent part is the manufacturing lead time ONLY for the parent, regardless of the cumulative lead time for parent and lower level component parts. arrow Lead time for parent parts recognizes both manufacturing lead time for the parent as well as the cumulative lead time for non-buffered component parts on the longest leg of the bill of material. Remember that the total cumulative lead time for the end item is de-coupled at any necessary buffer points.
STOCK MANAGEMENT ATTRIBUTES Fixed reorder quantity, order points, and safety stock that do not adjust to actual market demand or seasonality. arrow Buffer levels are dynamically adjusted as the part specific traits change according to actual performance over a rolling time horizon.
Only parts hitting minimum or reorder point are flagged for reorder. arrow All ASR buffered parts are managed using highly visible zone indicators including the percentage encroachment into the buffer.
No early warning indicators of potential stock outs or demand spikes. arrow An Order Spike Horizon looks out over the cumulative lead times of parts to identify large anomalous Sales Orders. This allows the plan to effectively compensate for known upcoming spikes in demand.
Past due requirements and orders to replenish safety stock are treated as "Due Now" arrow All orders get an assigned due date based up on quoted lead time in a make to order environment or based on cumulative lead time in the case of buffered stock.

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