HighJump leverages Lean
By Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 6/1/2006 12:00:00 AM MDT
Last year, HighJump Software, best known for its supply chain execution (SCE) applications, launched Manufacturing Advantage, a manufacturing execution system (MES). What seems an unlikely move out of the company's comfort zone is really a return to its roots in automated data collection, says Chris Heim, president.
"Automated data collection is where we started 21 years ago, and MES is a very robust form of data collection," he says, adding that the link between MES, SCE, and HighJump's other core interest—Lean operations—also is natural and organic.
"Although lean is traditionally associated with manufacturing, today's supply chains require linkages between manufacturing and related nodes—suppliers, warehousing, transportation," says Heim. "Because of this, lean must be a supply chain-wide effort to be successful. Reducing inventory levels—an extension of lean—is a core tenet of warehouse management and overall supply chain execution. MES, with its underpinnings in lean enablement, is a natural fit for us."
St. Paul, Minn.-based 3M Company is the parent company of HighJump, so it's no coincidence that 3M was among the first adopters of Manufacturing Advantage.
3M will use the MES to support its companywide lean initiative.
Says Paul Husby, 3M's VP for supply chain and logistics operations, "The initial work you do [in lean initiatives] is around changing the process itself, and the way people think about managing material flow through the plant. MES becomes the enabler of that. It helps you institutionalize that way of running material flow."
Heim says this focus on material flow from the factory to the supply chain is a growing trend accomplished by seamless connectivity between MES and the supply chain so that the output of the manufacturing process—finished goods—can naturally be defined as the input—inventory receipt—of the distribution process.
"On an information-sharing level," says Heim, "MES and SCE applications must connect through seamless interfaces if they are to share relevant data in real time."
