Aptean > Case Studies > Taking Ownership at Tek Pak with the Help of Made2Manage Shop Floor Manager

Taking Ownership at Tek Pak with the Help of Made2Manage Shop Floor Manager

Customer Company Size

SME

Region

America

Country

United States

Product

Made2Manage ERP
Made2Manage Shop Floor Manager

Tech Stack

ERP Systems
Shop Floor Execution Systems

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Productivity Improvements
Cost Savings

Technology Category

Functional Applications - Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP)
Functional Applications - Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES)

Applicable Industries

Plastics

Applicable Functions

Discrete Manufacturing
Quality Assurance

Use Cases

Manufacturing System Automation
Inventory Management

Services

System Integration

About The Customer

Tek Pak, Inc. is a manufacturer of packaging for the electronics industry and more. The company was founded in 1992 and has 78 employees. Tek Pak serves the electronics, healthcare, and consumer industries, offering custom thermoforming, prototyping, and tooling, as well as product development. The company has been a user of Made2Manage ERP since 1998. However, they struggled with errors, missing and incomplete transactions, and a general disinterest among the workforce due to the lack of interactivity and feedback from their bar code data collection system for shop floor reporting and inventory.

The Challenge

Tek Pak, a manufacturer of packaging for the electronics industry, was struggling with its bar code data collection system for shop floor reporting and inventory. The system was not interactive and provided no feedback, leading to errors, missing and incomplete transactions, and a general disinterest among the workforce. The reporting was not reliable, and the data was often a day behind, making it of no real value. Material usage was logged only once per week by supervisors based on hand-written notes from operators, so material issues went generally unnoticed until it was too late. Inventory accuracy and visibility were lacking.

The Solution

Tek Pak decided to implement Made2Manage Shop Floor Manager (SFM), a shop floor execution system designed to complement Made2Manage, due to its interactive interface for the production floor and the fact that it allowed visibility into the current status of a job without having to constantly generate reports. Tek Pak set up SFM workstations on the plant floor for employees to clock on and off of jobs as well as enter material usage directly so that it was applied to the correct job. In addition, the SFM displays gave work station users access to corresponding job documents, such as drawings and work instructions, right at their fingertips. The system was accepted as easier to use than the bar code system and users were able to clearly see direct benefits.

Operational Impact

The immediate result of Tek Pak’s SFM implementation was an 80 percent improvement in labor reporting, along with equivalent improvements in time and inventory count accuracy.
Supervisors now have access to real-time, accurate status and location information on every job out on the floor—at a glance.
There have also been big improvements in job costing as well. With new access to accurate costs, especially for labor, Tek Pak is now better able to track costs and margins by product and by customer.

Quantitative Benefit

80 percent reduction in labor-tracking errors with the use of Made2Manage Shop Floor Manager.
75 percent more accurate inventory records, with lot control, equating to fewer shortages, reduced inventory and increased traceability.