Aligning IT objectives to closely support Lean manufacturing business objectives can help companies gain or maintain a significant competitive advantage.
Brant O’Hair, president of O’Hair Shutters, Ltd., in Lubbock, Texas is using his ERP system to gain a strategic advantage in his constantly changing and increasingly competitive industry. By aligning his IT system investments to closely support his Lean manufacturing business objectives, he has outmaneuvered his competition.
O’Hair Shutters manufactures custom wood window shutters. The firm’s dealers in the field configure and design each order using the firm’s proprietary PC-based design platform, Customizer2 (C2). After the customer approves the design, each order is fed into O’Hair’s Fitrix ERP system. It then takes about five days to custom manufacture its high-quality shutters to the customer’s precise specifications.
Brant O’Hair credits their close integration of IT resources with helping them attain and maintain a strong competitive advantage. “There’s no doubt that coupling our design and ERP systems enable us to deploy Lean manufacturing to our strategic advantage. We now quickly and efficiently deliver a high-quality product that our competition can’t match. Even offshore manufacturers, who enjoy lower raw materials and labor costs, can’t offer our level of product customization or delivery schedules.”
O’Hair uses advanced planning software to manage the blending of its continuous manufacturing of base components with the customer order-based variable components to create their finished shutters. The custom designed product specifications resulting from the application of their proprietary C2 configurator are transferred real-time into the Fitrix ERP system. Using the ERP system’s make-to-order production planning and execution modules allows orders to be completed, inspected, and prepared for shipping in five days.
O’Hair credits the integration of Fitrix with helping him improve performance to weather the storm of the economic downturn. “This economy has played havoc with businesses related to residential construction. By automating many of our clerical procedures, we’ve freed up about 4 man-hours of production supervisors’ time per week and decreased our office clerical workload by about 15%. The savings have helped us retain our IT ‘brain trust’ – people that are hard to replace. Meanwhile, work is progressing on our next IT endeavor - lean inventory control. We conservatively estimate that with our custom programming of Fitrix we’ll be able to lean our inventories by over 50%. That means even larger savings.”
Interestingly, it was Brant O’Hair’s son, Micah, a graduate student at Auburn University, who introduced him to the term: IT-Integrated Lean manufacturing. “Micah learned about the IT strategy we’re now deploying from a graduate school professor at Auburn. “We’re taking what he learned in class and effectively applying it to our benefit.”
O’Hair’s efforts to leverage manufacturing planning software to enhance his operation’s efficiency go back to 2004. He deployed a very expensive and well known MRP solution but later abandoned it in frustration over continued high maintenance costs. “Deployment of Fitrix ERP from Fourth Generation Software was successful in less than half the time. Fitrix’s Total Cost of Ownership is a small fraction of our previous system. Also, we did almost all of the implementation and we handle support internally. We saved a bundle by eliminating the need for outside consultants. Fitrix provides us with a full-function ERP solution and the capability for self-support. For us it has been a win-win.”
For more information on Fitrix ERP, please visit www.fitrix.com.