A company I worked for had specific production planning strategies. The company works in visual marketing, making Point of Purchase Displays.  They use a pre-production sample of a display, and all of their production planning strategies were built from what they find.  The trouble with this method is the components rarely came in the order they expected.  With tight deadlines, the production team would begin to assemble things to prepare for final kit packing.  Sometimes this caused issues in the assembly process.  It’s this tunnel vision that causes project managers to take on unnecessary stress and make bad decisions.

If a display has assembly requirements, solid production planning strategies become more important.  LED Lights, product security, and tethers are all examples of what can complicate things.  There needs to be a drawing that details how to complete the assembly before production begins.  This step is important, even when a prototype has was made and went together without a hitch.  There is an element of complexity that goes into making hundreds of displays, when compared to creating a single prototype.  Efficiency, and ease of assembly are vital.  Good things happen when engineering makes a complete set of assembly drawings.  It makes building production planning strategies a lot easier.

Production Planning Strategies Help Your Engineer Double-Check

By doing these drawings up-front, engineers double check their work.  Think about it.  In that moment, they are looking over the entire process again.  The engineer is considering each step that needs done.  Often times, this puts the engineer in a different mindset than what they were in before.  This mindset gives an opportunity to recognize production issues that will come up sooner.  This is a great final check for the Engineer to check for mistakes, and optimize the display for ease of assembly in production.  This gives engineering a way to validate their design, and make last-minute adjustments. (’cause let’s be real, this happens on every job.)

The Production Planning Strategies Will be Mostly Done For You

These drawings provide the  project manager with clarity.  They make it easier to get the display assembled in completion with less bumps in the road.  Issues will still rear their ugly head, but they will be caught earlier.  The drawings make it easier for you to see what’s coming, and fend off any possible problems.  It empowers everyone to look at the big picture.  It helps them understand why they some steps need to wait until a later point.

Understanding the Order of Operations

With these drawings, it becomes a lot easier for the project manager to plan their timeline.  It enables them to see which components need to arrive first.  Instead of telling a vendor “I need all of the parts by this date,” you can instead say “I need M001, M002, and M003 by Tuesday, and the rest by Friday.” With this, they can prioritize the production, streamlining the entire process from the front-end.  This enables your vendors to work faster, and gives them more options.  This organized approach enables them to help you get through your project, and gets them to want to work with you again.

Closing Thoughts

It’s important to implement systems that make building production planning strategies easy.  This is especially true if you work in an industry that has projects that vary greatly in complexity, and detail.  An engineer needs the time and resources to create these details.  Additionally, the rest of the team needs time to look the drawings over.  It’s equally important that everyone on the team depends on these details, and sticks to the plan.  If your team can commit to all of these things, your company will make less mistakes.  Problems will be caught quicker.  Vendors will be able to prioritize what needs manufactured first.  Project managers will be able to focus on improving the project planning strategies instead of creating them.  This allows everything to run smoother.