When material is delayed due to a supply chain bottleneck, there is an immediate impact on the project schedule. Delays create a constraint requiring scheduling adjustments. PBA (project business automation) adjusts the schedule and cost adjustments when new or replacement material is sourced. These alterations are immediately reflected, and margins are automatically adjusted as well.
The automation transcends robotics or other perceived automated notions. Forecasts (estimates at completion) are automatically updated as well as operational and financial components. This one version of the truth keeps everyone from engineering to purchasing, costing to operations, on the same page.
Automation must be reconceived as managing what is happening more efficiently. The supply chain disruptions are not evaporated due to PBA; there is no claim that this technology proactively mitigates the actual disruption itself. That said, as these situations arise the ability to update and react is impacted without multiple information-sourcing throughout the enterprise.
As the pandemic, natural disasters, and other recent crises disrupted supply chains, business leaders were forced to rethink standard sourcing practices such as low-cost sourcing and just-in-time manufacturing. Today’s supply chain challenges demand new approaches.
PBA builds resiliency and identifies key steps to building a stronger supply chain
By optimizing a supplier network, controlling costs, forecasting demand more accurately, and gaining a fuller view of supply chains, engineer-to-order (ETO) and project-based manufacturers can monitor and react to situational variances. The ability to manage inventory, supplier relationships, and risk more effectively has bottom-line impacts.
ETO is a term used to describe finished products consisting of standard components that are combined according to customer specifications. Manufacturers handling ETO orders face a number of challenges with respect to developing, constructing, and producing custom-tailored articles. To properly deal with ETO, all the departments involved in the value chain – particularly development, construction, purchasing, production, and maintenance need access to reliable information at all times. PBA is a mature and specialized solution for manufacturers of customer-specific products. The system has a number of advantages.
The order cycle is completely mirrored, with the right degree of details shown for each production step; and delivery dates can be fixed from the beginning and will be kept honored and flagged when a supply chain disruption occurs.
Surplus can be reduced to a minimum because manufacturers have complete transparency to order networks; action is only required in contingency cases and will be immediately signalled.
With the rise of global competitiveness among industries, it has become increasingly vital to develop novel strategies to assist in optimizing value-chain networks, thus helping to secure economic success. By employing engineer-to-order practices, many enterprises have improved their manufacturing processes using PBA.
Supply chain strategies and the ETO approach
Supply chain strategies and the ETO approach best uses PBA to evaluate innovative processes and original operational models, frameworks, and architectures in the topic areas of industrial engineering and management science. Featuring optimized enterprise chain management strategies and emergent research within the field, PBA has become the best-in-class best-practice methodology for manufacturers specializing in enterprise operations and engineer-to-order procedures.
Author Bio
Matt Mong is the Vice President for Marketing and Communications at Adeaca. The new technology category of Project Business Automation (PBA) is designed for large manufacturers focused on project-based operations.
This blogpost is sponsored by TR Cutler
Header Image by eMotion Tech on Unsplash
