You don’t have to be a firefighter to deliver on time!

Breakthrough in scheduling simplifies managing a plant, while making it more responsive, improving on time delivery and throughput.

Imagine if…

Your plant ran on auto-pilot – people know what to do, and they do it!
Every resource is synchronized to your customer’s need
You deliver every order not only when you promised it, but sooner.
Your team is engaged in more fire prevention than fire fighting

Every order is delivered on time, in less time, with minimal management intervention.

The Maximum Flow System is a set of tools and processes to schedule and manage your order fulfillment efforts that involve planning, management, and ongoing improvement that results in:

20% more throughput
25% shorter lead times
15% more sales
20% more cash flow every month
Improved labor productivity of 15% or more

Despite the advances in information technology and systems, most plants manage the order fulfillment process of prioritizing and managing customer orders as if it were an art, using a craftsman approach, rather than treating order fulfillment as a system, requiring a process to manage and control. Rarely is the order fulfillment process treated as a process, with sequential steps and appropriate controls. Instead, order fulfillment is delegated to the resource owners (the plant) who have more incentive is to be “efficient” than deliver on time. As a result, the important task of customer satisfaction is an afterthought in process improvement. In the end, orders are thrown over the wall from sales to production, like hand grenades that might explode into a product that satisfies the customer.

"The beauty of the changes we have made has been that it was accomplished with a low tech common sense approach that yielded nearly immediate results of a magnitude I would not have thought possible. Two year increases in billings of 28% and 40%, with increases in our bottom line of five fold, and three fold. In short, the process has totally changed the look and feel of our business, and made it a better place to work."

Bob Page, President, Graphics Systems

The Maximum Flow System causes people to synchronize their day to day efforts towards the delivery requirements of the customer, which results in on time delivery of the customer’s order, with less effort and management intervention.

The Maximum Flow System

The maximum flow system is built around identifying the bottleneck resource in your order fulfillment process, then consistently focusing all activity around maximizing the output of that resource. This happens by:

Implementation of a centralized scheduling system
Changing the measurements to emphasize on time delivery
Developing a simple capacity planning model for your business
Implementing a structure to plan & manage the capacity
Implementation of early warning mechanisms to drive early action on risks to on time delivery

Resulting in a significant reduction of costs related to poor process management: overtime spending, premium freight, and waste.

Typically, there is no special software or additional overhead expenditure required to run the system, but the appointment of a full-time scheduler is required. This person is usually moved from another position and does not increase overhead.

The Maximum Flow process is this:

Establish the right measurements
Build a simplified capacity model
Reconcile the demand to the supply, prioritizing existing work
Communicate the priorities to the team
Connect order promising to the capacity model to prioritize new work
Connect the capacity model to senior management in a Sales & Operations Planning process

For a small plant with about 100 people, the numbers would look like this:

Benefits	Costs
Overtime 50% - $140,000	Scheduler - $70,000
Increase in Sales 5% - $250,000
Reduction in Inventory 15% - $100,000
+ $490,000	- $70,000

We often think that a complicated model is the only one that can be used to make good decisions. The truth is that we don’t need a complicated model, because our data is inaccurate. The range of error in our decision making is within the data error range. Put another way, it doesn't matter if the road is 10 feet wide or 11 feet wide. As long as we turn when we're supposed to, it doesn't affect when we decide to turn. Therefore, the trick is to make a simple model with selectively accurate information and buffers to compensate for variation.

"Gross profits from operations increased 174%"

Joe Merritt, President, Dixie Iron Works

The Maximum Flow Scheduling process results in a shift in thinking and behavior:

The process of delivering on time becomes a team responsibility
On time delivery is the primary measurement, not efficiency
Capacity and demand is carefully controlled.
Emphasis is on synchronization, rather than maximum efficiency or achieving the lowest cost

As a result, your plant becomes a much easier and more profitable place to work.

There are implications in the day to day give and take as well.

Production managers will sacrifice control over priorities (as if they had them to begin with), but what they gain is full control over their resources. They have a clear understanding of how they’re doing and a clear process for action. No more last minute priority changes, no taking orders from several different people about what to do; your people are allowed do their work without interruption, thus improving job satisfaction and productivity.

Sales People, Project Managers, and other Managers like the results of the system as well.

While they may sacrifice their ability to walk on the floor to change priorities, they gain greater reliability in shipping performance, consistent revenues, and a predictable system. In fact, after awhile, they don’t want to go on the shop floor to “help”.

The Maximum Flow System Coaching Program

I have been working with scheduling systems and solving supply chain management problems for over 20 years. In that time, I learned that while there are many different kinds of production, the problems they share are similar. That’s why I was the first to develop a process to systematically implement a drum-buffer rope system in manufacturing (in fact, I was one of the first in the world to implement one at all).

These implementations were universally successful. However, many organizations cannot get the backing to hire me and my team for a transformation project.

That’s why I developed the Maximum Flow System Coaching Program. I’ve found that for managers who are committed to making things better, I don’t need to be physically present to implement the solution, I can teach you how to implement the system yourself (I've taught many consultants how to implement, so why not you?).

"Mark is a great business thought leader. He understands and teaches the concepts well, throughout an organization, and is able to implement changes in concert with the employees such that the knowledge and ability is resident in the organization once the engagement has concluded.”

Jay Poffenberger, Managing Director, MCM Capital Partners

The Maximum Flow Scheduling System Coaching Program will teach you not only what you need to do to improve performance, but the sequence of implementation steps and the obstacles to success. Everything you need to consistently deliver on time while eliminating the firefighting and chaotic nature of the plant. Enrolling in the program will make you the beneficiary of the lessons I’ve learned in organizations from small to large, from simple to complex, from custom products to standard products, and more.

The program covers:

How to build a visual schedule management system -- with specific examples to help you to create one that fits your situation
How to manage the change in behaviors; getting support from your team and how to present the new system without creating resistance
How to communicate priorities with the entire shop
How to deal with execution problems early; using signals to take early action, preventing late deliveries and surprises
The detailed step-by-step procedures and policies you need to maintain good due date performance
What to measure and how to communicate these key metrics
How to integrate the scheduling system into strategic capacity management
How to use the system to drive ongoing improvement
Live coaching to ensure you know how to apply the information to YOUR situation

In short, the program offers you not only the ability to gain new knowledge, but guidance on implementation. If you’ve ever tried to learn to play a musical instrument, you understand the difference between reading the music and having an experienced player teach it to you. It makes all the difference in the world. That’s what the program is all about - you learning to play your own "music".

How it Works

I will conduct a series of workshop sessions in a live or webinar format. I expect that each of these will be serious about improving on time delivery and the quality of their organization’s work life. I will be delivering content with examples and application. We will then have a discussion about application. We willl conclude with an assignment for implementation or further study or both.

During the training, we will discuss your implementation, your homework and any questions you have.

The design of the Maximum Flow Scheduling System is based on my years of working with plants and learning what it really takes to substantially improve due date performance, reduce lead-times, and reduce chaos in order fulfillment.

The Lessons?

There are very few people that need to change their behavior, but those people are critical to success.
Getting success early in the implementation drives results later; building confidence that things are heading in the right direction is critical to sustained change
We can create BIG results with some very small changes
Simple systems are the only ones that last
Visual management is critical to simplicity and communication
The “wandering bottleneck” is a myth, it’s easy to control your resource constraints
A minimum amount of information is need to effectively manage delivery performance
How to coach managers and supervisors to get it done.
And these are the lessons incorporated into the Maximum Flow Scheduling System!

Resources

Each attendee will receive:

A personalized copy of my book, The Manufacturer’s Guide to Implementing the Theory of Constraints.

Templates for each of the policies and procedures you’ll need to implement; examples from past implementations from a variety of organizations. This has never been offered to the public before, but reserved for clients purchasing the complete process reengineering projects.

I estimate the value of these to be over $1,000!

Guarantee

If you make an honest effort to follow the system and don’t get results, I’ll be happy to refund your enrollment fee. I guarantee that if you don’t get value (and you decide what that will be) from the session, I’ll refund your enrollment fee and you keep all the materials, a $1,000 value.

Questions? Need More Information?

Visit the frequently asked questions page or drop me a line.

I hope you'll join us in the program and invite me to be your coach in one of the most rewarding career experiences you'll have.

Don't delay, book your on-site training now!