Simplified Market-Pull Scheduling (SMP)

Most manufacturers today are operating at something less than full capacity. Ironically, many still struggle to get product out the door on time. And manufacturers will often turn down additional business because it is perceived to be unprofitable or too low-margin to be worthwhile. This situation is nothing new. Manufacturers have faced similar challenges many times before – whenever market demands have failed to consume the full capacity of the plant. Past and current methodologies, including MRP, finite scheduling, advanced planning, optimization, etc. have helped in some cases but many more companies have been unable to cure these problems by applying such technologies. Meanwhile, systems and controls get more and more complicated and production has lost touch with the needs of the customer.

Simplified Market-Pull Scheduling (SMP) is an alternative approach that is built on two principles: direct ties with customer demand (pull) and simplification. SMP borrows some ideas from the theory of constraints (TOC) and demand-based flow manufacturing but does not require a rearrangement of equipment as does flow, nor a drastic change in production control mechanisms as does TOC. SMP directly attacks the problem of having excess capacity accompanied by difficulty in completing work on-time. With SMP in place, production lead-time is dramatically reduced and that excess capacity becomes clearly visible and available for productive use. The second part of SMP is directed at filling that excess capacity with additional business that raises both sales revenue and bottom-line profit. SMP is lean manufacturing – incorporating the basic objectives of lean including reduced lead-time, reduced inventory, higher productivity (throughput), and "pull" scheduling. Importantly, SMP goes a step further by incorporating mechanisms to apply the newly released excess capacity to bring in new business, increasing revenue and profit.

This white paper report describes an innovative, simple and effective approach to Lean Manufacturing. Simplified Market Pull (SMP) includes a ‘pull' scheduling mechanism with appropriate controls and buffers that supports dramatic reductions in production lead-time and work-in-process inventory while freeing up available capacity and improving on-time performance and reliability. SMP delivers results in just weeks. SMP is appropriate for manufacturing companies that are market constrained, that is, companies with more than enough capacity to fulfill current demands. With slightly different scheduling mechanisms, SMP applies to both make to- order and build-for-stock situations.