We recently interviewed our client Wyatt Shallbetter, President of States Manufacturing. 

Here’s what Wyatt had to say about his company’s challenge, the CTC solution, and the results:  

Challenge 

Our production scheduling process was inefficient and had to be done manually, which caused a large number of bottlenecks and left us with ample opportunities for error. We needed to look for ways to automate and streamline the workflow, with our primary focus being the need for a better tool for scheduling, automation, reporting, and visualization.  

We’d previously had great success using Microsoft Planner for machine scheduling because everything can be stored in buckets, so we tried to leverage it for resource planning, but it was too limited in its capabilities. Our information was scattered across multiple systems and tools, which made digital clutter a real issue. Each of our projects has anywhere from five to ten subassemblies used to produce finished goods, and each flows through our production environment in different phases and rates of completion. Therefore, for each step in a project, a production supervisor would have to log into the system to dictate the next step and, potentially track down the paperwork by walking the production floor environment to find the necessary materials and paperwork to help steer it to the next step. It was a full-time job in and of itself.

We considered our ERP system, Epicor, as a potential solution to issues, but decided it was not the right solution for these reasons:

• Functionality was limited in its current state. 
• We couldn’t easily manipulate the data. 
• Quality, affordable Epicor consultants were hard to find. 

Solution: 

We had recently hired CTC Productivity to help us streamline our sales-engineering workflow and engineering resource management. First, they lead us through the process of reviewing and streamlining our workflow. Then, they assisted us in building out a technology solution on Microsoft SharePoint, a tool we already owned as part of our Microsoft license, but had never fully explored.

Here is a link to that client perspective: Engineering Resource Planning

We were very pleased with the results we saw with CTC’s assistance, so we decided to continue leveraging their expertise and building on that solution. We wanted to have one tool for all resource management and take advantage of the power of that platform.

We also wanted to capitalize on Epicor in the areas where it works well – financial planning, material tracking, order entry, job entry, raw material inventory, and purchasing. We decided to build out our scheduling, reporting, automation, and visualization in SharePoint with CTC’s guidance. This had the added benefit of not having all our eggs in one basket, our ERP tool.

Since Epicor sits on a sequel database we could use the data while not having to deal with the complexities of that system–we were able to move data from Epicor to SharePoint. This ended up being a great solution for us and checked all of our boxes, while making it easier to maintain long term. 

As with our engineering project, CTC recommended we identify internal resources to become SharePoint/PowerBi experts to own and maintain the process. CTC would help train our personnel to take over ownership of the system, which is a much more economical approach in the long run. 

Results:   

(This project is still under deployment and implementation, but we have already recognized equivalent or greater efficiency in our project tracking compared to our old methods.) 

By leveraging CTC’s expertise, we were able to simplify our toolset by now having just two places in which we manage production. We greatly streamlined our workflow through automation. Since making this change, we no longer have to rely on manual intervention when a task is complete–now we just need to keep an eye on it. We were able to say goodbye to fact-checking, which has resulted in a speedier and more accurate process. 

In addition to the time saved with inefficiencies, it will also be much easier to onboard and train new staff with this simple-to-use software. All of our resource planning and projects are managed in SharePoint, reducing the amount of time dedicated to training new personnel. 

Our switch to SharePoint has created efficiencies in our process, therefore saving us time, but it also comes with no additional cost to us as a business, as SharePoint is part of our Microsoft 365 license already.

We would highly recommend CTC Productivity for any manufacturer looking to streamline their workflow and manage resources effectively.  

Project Cost, Timeline, & ROI 

One-Time Project Cost: $21K  

Ongoing Cost: $0 

 Timeline: 3 months 

 ROI: In total, Production Supervisors will save 5.7 months a year