A complete series of Lean Manufacturing modules is designed to complement and enhance the powerful functionality of Microsoft Business Solutions - Axapta.
With competitive benefits becoming increasingly important in an ever toughening market place, many enterprises are now looking to adopt lean manufacturing practices to drive out waste and increase value enabling them to deliver what the customer wants in the fastest possible time at the lowest possible cost. Drawing on a comprehensive training background in lean methodologies, eBECS recognised a specific need among UK manufacturers for software that could assist a lean business strategy. This experience coupled with eBECS' early adoption of Microsoft Business Solutions - Axapta enabled eBECS to develop its lean enterprise Solution which includes Lean Manufacturing using pull techniques including kanbans, Lean Supply Replenishment, Flow Scheduling, Lean Ordering and Vendor Managed Inventory.

The eBECS solution is available to customers who have already implemented as well as new customers.

Lean Manufacturing - this is the ability to establish manufacturing cells where downstream triggers pull kanbans through the supply chain.

Cells are loaded with orders from Lean ordering and other sources with extensive usage of visual techniques for execution.

Lean Supply Replenishment - while similar to Lean Manufacturing, this module provides functionality which extends electronic kanbans out to suppliers.

Lean Supply Replenishment supports everything from simple email kanbans to email alerts for secure website schedule and call-off support.

It also handles pulling materials from a central warehouse where the practicality of serving multiple points on a shopfloor makes that appropriate.

Both also enable more sophisticated kanban triggers, like backflushing for materials consumption and monitoring bin weigh scales on production cells.

Flow Scheduling - this module supplies demand for a cell in a 'scheduled manner' and is an aid for manufacturers moving from make-to-stock-or-forecast towards lean make-to-order.

By considering planned orders from a master production schedule while also reading kanban replenishment requests, the Flow Scheduling module provides the cell supervisor with a representation of items and quantities required.

Electronic heijunka card functionality assists with the pragmatic compromise of production smoothing of ordered and forecast product that's essential in the transition from traditional batch manufacturing to a lean strategy.

Lean Ordering - Lean Ordering ensures that production rates anywhere in a plant are dictated by, and subservient to, the potential of the bottleneck cells or resources.

This is achieved by ensuring that sales orders are loaded here first, with other resources following.

Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) - this module caters for vendor managed inventory and consignment stock handling, both increasingly common practices in lean supply chains.

Sales and Procurement Schedules - many organizations need to balance and level flow as their interaction up and down the supply chain takes place via schedules as opposed to discrete customer orders.

The solution supports the use of such schedules to the level required by the automotive industry.

Andrew Rumney - Solutions Director at eBECS comments 'What prevents organizations delivering on the need to rapidly respond to customers, to deliver what customers need on short notice, and to provide increasingly diverse products are challenges that confront all manufacturers today?

In a word, MUDA, the Japanese word for waste, specifically any activity which absorbs resources but creates no value.

To answer this challenge of eliminating waste many companies are turning to a solution that is not new, is proven and for reasons that can't be explained are largely not recognized - Lean Manufacturing.

We have developed the eBECS Lean Enterprise Solution for Microsoft Axapta specifically to assist manufacturers that have recognized the need to migrate to a lean manufacturing strategy.

The modular approach recognizes that this migration route will be different for different manufacturers, and offers maximum flexibility.

Axapta is a perfect product for companies looking to use a Lean approach due to its flexible nature and the ease with which it can be configured and changed as an organization moves forward' Clyde Bennett - Microsoft Business Solutions' supply chain management Expert and Product Manager for Axapta reflects, 'Lean Business concepts as illuminated by authors Dan Jones, and Jim Womak and practiced by many, represent a stream of compelling tools for any kind of enterprise looking to improve performance and prepare for future improvement.

eBECS are proving that a manufacturing software solution plays a key role in lean thinking.

The goal is to make the right decisions at the right levels in the team.

EBECS have developed a comprehensive solution within Axapta that use lean principles to deliver on this objective.

By using pull and flow techniques and providing front-line supervisors, operators, and suppliers the right information in a timely way.

We integrate the process to make it both more efficient, and more responsive to customer needs.

By integrating these lenses with ERP base data, both the teams making production happen, and the corporate management get better views of what they need.

The Axapta toolset, including some clever applications from eBECS, and the organizational impact of learning problem solving techniques in the lean thinking portfolio can make a real difference to any business, quickest seen in production, but accessible to any business needing to satisfy customers.' About eBECS - eBECS is part of the eBECS Group, dedicated to business improvement by the use of 'Lean Thinking' throughout the extended supply chain.

eBECS have developed expertise in the removal of waste from all aspects of the organization together with the specific solutions on defining value, establishing flow and running an enterprise based on pull techniques.

eBECS's focus has been to enhance the Axapta product, enabling organizations to quickly take advantage of all that 'Lean Thinking' has to offer.

The eBECS Group provides a technology and business partnership approach, which at its heart, removes the complexity and hype surrounding the Lean and e-business world.