{"id":664,"date":"2023-10-02T02:35:28","date_gmt":"2023-10-02T02:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/?page_id=664"},"modified":"2023-12-07T21:05:06","modified_gmt":"2023-12-07T21:05:06","slug":"job-and-materials-release-synced-application","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/?page_id=664","title":{"rendered":"Job and Materials Release Synced Application"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It was close to the end of the day, and Jakob was just starting to think about closing up his shop when the bell on the door rang and Pieter walked in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPieter!\u201d Jakob\u2019s face lit up with a smile. \u201cHow are you, man?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m well, thanks,\u201d Pieter replied. \u201cI was passing by, and I realised it\u2019d been too long since I had some of that biltong you make.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jakob could remember how Pieter liked his biltong, and he grabbed a stick and began slicing it for him. \u201cYou\u2019re still with that consulting business, right?\u201d he asked as he worked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s right,\u201d Pieter replied. \u201cIt\u2019s going well \u2013 I\u2019m actually on my way back from a client site now. Why, did you want some advice?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUh\u2026 maybe.\u201d Jakob looked embarrassed. \u201cCould you spare a few minutes while I close up?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSure.\u201d As Jakob went around the store, locking the doors and turning off the lights, Pieter leaned up against the counter. \u201cSo, what\u2019s on your mind?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the drying rooms,\u201d Jakob said as he came back to where Pieter was waiting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pieter frowned. \u201cYou\u2019re going to have to explain that, sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBiltong has to be dried, right? And so does cabanossi, and dro\u00ebwors, and all the other small goods I sell. There are three rooms we use to dry them, and we call them\u2026 drying rooms. Stop me if I\u2019m going too fast.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Pieter shook his head in exasperation. \u201cI forgot how sarcastic you could be when customers aren\u2019t around! OK, what\u2019s the problem with these drying rooms of yours?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey always seem to be working on the wrong thing, or not working at all,\u201d Jakob explained. \u201cLook, I get some customers walking into this store, like you just did, but most of my business is filling orders to supply other stores. Those drying rooms are the bottleneck in my business because everything has to go through them, and there are only 24 hours in a day. We just can\u2019t seem to get them operating as efficiently as I\u2019d like.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pieter nodded. \u201cOK, talk me through this. What do you do, and how does it go wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the start of the day, I look at all the orders we need to process and make sure it is up-to-date,\u201d Jakob began. \u201cI put them in a sequence so that they all go through the drying rooms by the date we need to ship them and give that list to the supervisors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis all sounds good so far,\u201d Pieter said. \u201cWhat happens next?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe supervisors check we have the meat and other stores needed to fill those orders, then everyone gets to work. And that\u2019s when the problems start\u2026\u201d Jakob sighed. \u201cI try to keep the drying room list current, but somehow it never works as it should. The guys setting up the cutting and curing want to be as efficient as possible, so they grab all the stuff for the upcoming orders that can be done together. Which is good, right? But that means the orders start getting processed out of the sequence I had set up, so the stuff that gets to the drying rooms isn\u2019t always what I had expected would make it in there that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And we can\u2019t just open the drying rooms and change what\u2019s in them when the orders reach the drying rooms, because that destroys the temperature and humidity balance for the stuff that\u2019s being processed. Even though the drying rooms are operating constantly, I still end up having to tell customers that their order has been delayed. That\u2019s not a good conversation to have with someone who\u2019s expecting 250kg of biltong to arrive tomorrow afternoon, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOK, so you need to keep that sequence intact,\u201d Pieter said thoughtfully. \u201cThe obvious thing to do is to just keep all the meat and spices and so on stored away, and people can only get what they need for the job they\u2019re working on. Have you tried that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jakob nodded. \u201cYep, and in some ways that was even worse. Doing that meant there were delays between jobs getting processed \u2013 it takes time to move 300kg of beef, and set up the curing trays, and so on. That meant orders were being started too late, and then wouldn\u2019t reach the drying rooms in time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pieter nodded. \u201cWere you getting all the orders done?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jakob shook his head. \u201cThat was the other problem. We are getting gaps in the sequence at the drying rooms, and we can\u2019t afford to stop and wait for the missing orders\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jakob sighed heavily. \u201cHonestly, I don\u2019t know what to do. It seems like we\u2019re stuck not getting things done in time, either because the sequence got messed up or because we were running incomplete loads.\u201d He looked up at his friend hopefully. \u201cGot any ideas?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pieter looked up at the ceiling while he thought. \u201cWell,\u201d he said eventually, \u201cOne thing we often tell clients is to time the access to jobs and the material that those jobs will use so that they line up. Synchronise it if that makes sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When one job gets finished, which in your case means coming out of the drying room, the next job gets released along with the material necessary to complete it. The advantage is that people can\u2019t really get the jobs out of sequence, and you are ensuring that the right jobs reach the drying room – your constraint – to complete the day\u2019s orders on time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To make it work, you have to be looking into the future a bit and planning out what needs to be completed ahead of time\u2026 but you were doing that anyway, right? I mean, it takes time to dry the biltong and so on, so you had to be working a bit ahead anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jakob nodded excitedly. \u201cYeah, we were. OK, let me think for a moment\u2026 so, for each drying room, I need to work out how many hours ahead its scheduled orders must be released, so that all those orders have finished cutting and curing prior to the time I want to close the drying room door. Man, I think that could work! Why didn\u2019t I think of that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Pieter shrugged. \u201cYou\u2019re probably focused on the day-to-day stuff \u2013 getting the goods out the door, getting supplies, paying wages, and so on. I’ve seen this problem before. It\u2019s common whenever a large investment is made, as you did with the drying rooms. The investment leaves people very sensitive to maximising the return, and so like your rooms you care that they are full. Correctly, I might add, because if you don\u2019t manage to do that the business will collapse. And when you\u2019re up to your arse in alligators, it\u2019s not easy to take a step back and look at things with a clear head.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAin\u2019t that the truth!\u201d Jakob laughed. \u201cThanks, Pieter, I\u2019m going to give that a try.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo that,\u201d Pieter nodded. \u201cI\u2019ll come back next week, and you can tell me how you got on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was actually more like two weeks by the time Pieter got back to Jakob\u2019s store, but when he did, he saw his friend grinning at him from behind the counter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfternoon, Jake. You look like you\u2019re in a good mood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am! You were right with what you said, things are going much better now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad to hear it!\u201d Pieter said. \u201cSo, you did end up synchronising the release of jobs and materials, then?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jakob nodded. \u201cYes. And it worked! Oh, there was a bit of trial and error to get the chunk size right \u2013 you know, how big each batch of jobs and its materials should be. When I planned out what to release today, later this week and next week, I found that the drying rooms would be full about half the time. It was tempting to add in next week\u2019s customer orders and run them too. We\u2019ve done that plenty of times before and it helped us stay in front. Fortunately, though, I realised that it would be better to fill the gaps with new sales. Let me tell you, that was amazing!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It used to be so common for customers who are passing through to stop in, only to find we have run out of their favourite biltong and then leave empty-handed. So, we choose to fill the gaps with small batches of some fast-turning items, so now we always have some stock on-hand. Orders are getting done on time and in sequence now, and the drying rooms are always full. Our output has actually increased a little bit too, just from getting the sequencing right. I\u2019m amazed how much difference it\u2019s made!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Pieter smiled at him. \u201cYeah, we hear that from clients pretty often. Small things can make a big difference, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, I believe it!\u201d Jakob laughed, then looked at Pieter speculatively. \u201cActually, while you\u2019re here, can I get your opinion on something else? Now that the drying rooms are operating properly, there\u2019s this other little expansion idea I\u2019ve been thinking about\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was close to the end of the day, and Jakob was just starting to think about closing up his shop when the bell on the door rang and Pieter walked in. \u201cPieter!\u201d Jakob\u2019s face lit up with a smile. \u201cHow are you, man?\u201d \u201cI\u2019m well, thanks,\u201d Pieter replied. \u201cI was passing by, and I …<\/p>\n

Job and Materials Release Synced Application<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-664","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/664"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=664"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2500,"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/664\/revisions\/2500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}