Vendors address line design, visual instructions for lean

"ERP vendors tend to focus on Kanban, but how many focus on lean design and performance?" asks Adil Dalal, president of Pinnacle Process Solutions International, a startup software and services company that offers line design tools.

Traditionally, lean manufacturers undertake value-stream mapping exercises, stopwatch timing of work tasks, and use spreadsheets to capture information for line design. But according to Dalal, "line design is not just about numbers. Customization and optimization are the key words for process design."

Pinnacle's software applies statistical methods to line design, considers upstream factors such as supply constraints, and includes simulation and statistical tools for testing different approaches to lean, adds Dalal. "You need the right tool for the job," he says. "A problem with many lean experts is that they apply only the methodology they know."

Pinnacle works closely with Process Design & Documentation, software and services vendor of Visual Electronic Work Instruction (VEWI), for creating and managing work instructions and documentation for lean. Terry Walsh, the company's president, says any type of document—e.g., word processing, CAD—can be stored and associated with VEWI's templates, and the system "translates that content into a picture the operator can easily understand."

Walsh concurs that transaction-oriented vendors tend to focus on Kanban inventory replenishment and materials management, rather than line design. "We're focusing on the process," says Walsh.

But ERP vendor Oracle Corp. says line design is not overlooked in its solution. Its design module has evolved from a spreadsheet-type tool to a graphical line design and analysis tool.

"The tool identifies the process your products go through and defines the work tasks that need to take place, with information on resources such as labor, labor grades, or machine assets," says Richard Rodgers, Oracle's product director for manufacturing applications. The tool comes up with an optimal line design given all those factors, while a related function called "Mixed Model Map Workbench" allows managers to test "what-if?" line variables. Rodgers says more than 300 organizations have licensed the lean/flow solution, and that many of them use the line design and workbench tools.