In the world of Operations Management, especially in manufacturing, change is inevitable. There can be changes to the product based on customer feedback and product improvement. There can be changes to the processes due to new technology, think about robots, or product redesign. There can also be changes to the basic way you extrapolate data to determine how your operations are running. We used to keep track of production data on paper, it was inefficient at best and lacked the timeliness to react in order to prevent problems from occurring. We needed something newer and more accurate in order for our business to survive. My previous company, a small manufacturing operation, was stuck in the past. It had been “operating” with an antiquated DOS based order and inventory system for over 20 years. A typical day consisted of consulting a handed down Excel spreadsheet with order numbers and other pertinent information so we could run the shift. Orders that had been completed during 2nd and 3rd shift were scratched out with a pencil, leaving lots of room for error. There were frequent issues with orders being prematurely scratched out and new orders started only to find the error and swap the equipment out again. Sometimes, when the Excel sheet was edited, orders were inadvertently deleted or moved to a different machine causing confusion. Often there was not enough inventory produced due to manual counts scribbled on the back of the order and the human error involved in keeping
