Manufacturers of Bare and Insulated Wire and Cable
Though production of high volume commodity products is an important aspect of the industry, many wire and cable manufacturers are moving to more complex and sophisticated products that have specialized high performance characteristics. These products are often jointly engineered with customers and suppliers to meet the demands of particular applications. In this environment, wire and cable manufacturers must be able to:
- Quickly develop, quote, and produce new products to specific customer specifications
- Effectively manage the complexity of having many customized end products for different customers
- Rapidly and efficiently produce products in both low volume and high
- Contain costs and effectively utilize expensive capital equipment
Real World Issues
Leading wire & cable companies are recognizing that these goals can only be achieved by integrating management of the entire business around a common base of information and streamlined business processes. But there are fundamental product and process issues that make this industry unique, and that must be effectively addressed by an enterprise management system in order to be successful. Some of these real world issues are:
Product specification involves considerable data
The specification of products from raw materials through finished goods requires the centralization of material, process, machine and quality control data. This data must include the attributes and characteristics of each item, such as gauge, number of conductors, jacket, length, and put-up.
Tracking units are containers
Inventory must be tracked at the container level (e.g., reel, gaylord, spool, coil, etc.) since quantities, attributes, and locations can be different for each container produced from a given production order and for the same part number (e.g., two reels produced from the same order may have different lengths). Some form of numbered tags must be produced to uniquely identify each container.
Length management is a key issue in production planning and control
For most make-to-order cable products, customer-specified lengths must be planned and managed through multiple levels of production. For this reason, the planning system must take into consideration the actual length of inventory as well as length-related factors such as twist loss.
Semi-finished material often flows directly into next stage orders
Semi-finished material such as bare wire is often apportioned and immediately routed to multiple next-stage orders in a continuous process (e.g., bare wire to one or more extrusion lines). The material dispatching process must be fast and efficient with minimal transaction requirements in order to keep production moving.
Scheduling is critical to productivity and cost control
All wire and cable manufacturers must effectively utilize their capital equipment in order to achieve throughput and profitability goals. Because of this, scheduling is driven by numerous factors in addition to customer request dates. Production is usually sequenced by product characteristics and attributes in order to reduce set-up time, queue time, and scrap (e.g., due to bleed-out). Many plants must also schedule around their biggest bottleneck (e.g., extruders, cablers, etc.).
Units of measure are variable
A given item may be sold, purchased, or inventoried in multiple units of measure (e.g., feet or meters), while production is usually done in a different unit of measure (e.g., thousands of feet (MFT), etc.) and scrap is typically recorded in pounds. The various quantities must be easily converted when processing transactions.
Inexact quantities are a way of life
In purchasing, manufacturing and selling, exact planned order quantities are virtually never realized. Shipment or receipt of a quantity that slightly more or less than the order quantity is a normal practice. Customers often specify quantity tolerances that are acceptable to them.
Selling prices often fluctuate with commodity prices
The price of copper (or other high value commodities) can change daily. Since copper represents a significant element of cost in many cable constructions, when its price has a significant change, that change must be quickly reflected in the selling price of end products in order to maintain profitability. Actual selling prices may be set based on copper prices at either order or shipment time.
Reel management is important to profitability
There are many types and sizes of reels. Selecting the reel that has the least cost while satisfying customer requirements and product specifications can significantly affect profit margins. Many reels are reusable and returnable, therefore managing and tracking who has what reels can save the company significant money over time.
In addition to these issues, bare wire producers also have many of the characteristics of the metals industry described in that section.
The AXIOM Enterprise Resource Management System has been designed with all of these issues in mind. And it has the special capabilities needed by individual segments within the industry as well. For a brief description of some of the special features provided by AXIOM to address the specific needs of various segments, see:
Then see the Solutions section for a more complete description of AXIOM's functional scope and capabilities. |