Mach Six: Not Just Another Pretty Face

A Manufacturing Solution for Break Through Performance

Been to any manufacturing software beauty contests lately? All the rivals claim to have the answers to your manufacturing performance problems. One manufacturing solution provider says inventory optimization takes first place. Others say analytics or simulation win the prize. ERP contestants say they have it all – why shop anywhere else?

We say true manufacturing solutions encompass more than just software thrown at your performance challenges. Manufacturing solutions that lack a well thought out methodology that embraces change management are bound to fail. For your company to survive and thrive in the 21st Century, you need a new, demand-driven approach along with supporting software to help you get there.

Invistics MachSix uniquely combines advanced optimization, analytics and simulation software with a manufacturing performance methodology that integrates proven principles of Lean Manufacturing with key components of Six Sigma’s DMAIC. This unique flow manufacturing approach helps you redefine tradeoffs between inventory, cycle time, throughput and customer service.

What does that mean? Well, there are plenty of manufacturing solutions to help you reduce inventory, but oftentimes that means your customer service levels are going to suffer. Most people know that the higher you go on the customer service curve, the larger your inventory becomes. It’s hard to strike a balance that minimizes inventory, yet keeps customer service levels high. When you add in capacity planning, things become even more difficult. In order to balance inventory, customer service and capacity while increasing performance in each category, you have to consider variability. That’s where flow manufacturing comes in.

Flow paths allow complex manufacturing environments with shared equipment to take advantage of Lean concepts that eliminate waste. By grouping products into families that visit similar pieces of equipment, flow paths let you manage thousands of products with no dedicated equipment. That allows you to control inventory and manage to a constant level of work in process without adding capacity or impacting customer service levels.

Now, here’s where DMAIC comes in. We’ll help you define product flows to achieve maximum throughput, establish key metrics to measure your performance, analyze plant floor dynamics to monitor progress, and put tools in place for continuous modeling to improve tomorrow’s performance while you control today’s levels.

It’s a modern, but well-tested manufacturing solution that helps you maintain perfect balance while scaling to new plateaus, because lowering inventory may look good on paper, but if it causes you to miss order commitments, no one wins. You want results that are attractive for the short term, and equally sustainable for the long haul—a healthy relationship among all your key performance metrics.

Have you been moving up and down the customer service vs. inventory curve? Invistics manufacturing solution can help you fundamentally shift those dynamics. It’s not just a matter of mastering performance metrics; it’s a matter of redefining them.

Our customers have shifted the curve. In fact, with Invistics MachSix they have achieved:

Now, aren’t those beautiful?

Learn more about our manufacturing solutions today.