Background

In 2002, Package Five was founded by a married couple who operated in a small warehouse. Today (2018), Package Five operates with a total of 10 machines and 50 employees making various types of packaging. Henry Mann (former. Qualcomm, Snapchat, DollarShave Club) was brought in to take Package Five to new heights. Their philosophy revolves around investing in the best technology to stay lean. Their factory specializes in folding carton, corrugated, and flexible packaging.‍

Challenge‍

Having little visibility into their resource usage, Package Five was not able to confidently deliver on customer order promise dates, so they turned to WorkClout.

1. Inventory - By not having an efficient method of tracking inventory usage and requirements, Package Five ran into multiple instances where jobs in production could not be completed due to lack of inventory available. This resulted in countless hours lost in changeover and idle times.
2. Run Speeds - Run durations were not efficiently monitored or calculated when a schedule was put in place. Package Five could not get a good read on whether or not the operator shifts would be able to complete their jobs on time when scheduled. This resulted in compromised promise dates for certain jobs.
3. Order Promise Dates - With so many jobs in the queue to be worked on, each with their own unique promise dates, Package Five was not able to visualize and plan for the most optimal situation and could not update customers in advance.
4. Run Dependencies - Having outsourced the pre-press work for jobs that require custom work, Package Five production schedulers could not anticipate if a run could not be started due to a constraint with pre-press artwork not being approved, which resulted in several jobs being pulled mid-run.

Why WorkClout?

WorkClout’s Advanced Production Schedule (APS) is built and configurable for almost any make-to-order production scenario.

1. Inventory - By enabling the usage of sub-components on items and job tickets, Package Five employees are able to accurately locate and update inventory usage per job. This alongside WorkClout’s inventory notification allows Package Five to anticipate restocking needs and times when providing lead times.
2. Run Speeds - When configuring work centers, WorkClout’s scheduling algorithm accounts for each station’s average runs speed and production quantity to provide accurate estimated run times. Package Five now can confidently confirm a production day ahead of time.
3. Order Promise Dates - WorkClout’s production schedule enables the visualization of compromised orders based on run speeds, inventory and quantity ordered. In parallel, Package Five is now able to arrange the schedule to ensure orders are delivered on time.
4. Run Dependencies - By receiving notifications and having the ability to visualize run dependencies, Package Five is able to take action and follow up on delays to get their artwork approval process on track before having to schedule a job.

Summary

Before using WorkClout, Package Five did not have the tools required to effectively and confidently plan a production schedule. With so many factors that can impact the efficiency of production using a manual method of planning increased the production waste that only compounded as the company grew. Having adopted WorkClout, Package Five was able to identify waste, plan with capacity in mind, and streamline their workflow process.

As a result, fulfillment capacity increased by over 14% and is projected to grow even more as time passes.