In a global environment marked by fluctuating demand profiles, distributed supply sources, customers’ expectations of rapid response, and an expanding product footprint, there is an ever-growing need to improve factory performance, which is the primary source of creating value for customers. Many challenges impede the achievement of enhanced factory operations, however, including managing short product life cycles, evaluating alternatives to manage supply chain risks, minimizing liabilities, and handling multi-mode production—all while trying to achieve lean operations.
i2 Manufacturing Management synchronizes material between the factory floor and multi-tiered supplier operations and optimizes capacity and labor while reducing inventory and order-to-delivery lead times. The i2 manufacturing management solution is a comprehensive methodology incorporating i2’s deep domain expertise in planning, scheduling, execution, and collaboration processes. It provides intelligent material, capacity, and constraint management, along with the quick detection of problems, proactive exception-based management, and rapid “what-if “analysis, to streamline factory and supplier operations. Companies can consolidate planning and execution workflows, eliminating mismatches that create chaos and non-value added activities on the shop floor.
"Building a long-term relationship made sense. Using i2’s services, we believed that we could achieve a total return on investment. Our project goals were to shorten the planning cycle, to increase responsiveness, and to utilize "what-if" analyses. We have achieved those primary goals ... We’re tremendously happy with i2 solutions, and I think we got more than our dollar value out of our implementation. There are a lot of other miscellaneous benefits that we’ve encountered. I don’t think I can possibly name them all."
—Mike Dager, Production Planning Administrator
North American Tire Division Cooper Tire & Rubber Company
i2 Manufacturing Management solves material flow challenges across the factory floor and extended supply chain by focusing on the following key elements:
Factory Planning and Material Coordination – Provides synchronized material and capacity planning while enabling quick what-if scenario management and decision support as well as the coordination of purchasing, planning, and production with customer orders.
Lean Life Cycle Management – Institutionalizes pull-based manufacturing by providing level planning, Heijunka scheduling, kanban management, and real-time kaizen discipline, facilitated through scenario and exception management, for any make-to-stock, build-to-order, assemble-to-order, or hybrid manufacturing environment.
Schedule and Sequence Management – Realizes executable schedules across any manufacturing environment using a flexible attribute-based framework to handle business-level and shop-floor constraints. It provides real-time problem detection and corrective action and closes the loop between planning and execution.
Supply Schedule Management and Visibility – Manages all supplier interactions across the life cycle of a purchase order, provides multiple replenishment modes using just one system, enables real-time visibility and tracking of inventory and shipments across multi-tiered supply and production operations.
Deliver rapid results and support a lean and agile factory as well as supplier operations
i2 has 20 years of direct experience in helping customers from a wide spectrum of industry sectors—including automotive, industrial, high-tech, semiconductor, consumer electronics, aerospace and defense, and others—to solve challenging problems related to factory planning, job scheduling, production execution, and supplier material coordination and tracking. i2 Manufacturing Management provides the most comprehensive solution footprint to deliver rapid results and support a lean and agile factory as well as supplier operations.
Want to learn more?
at 877.926.9286, or contact your nearest i2 sales office.
Featured Case Study
Improving Factory Operations at Caterpillar Inc.
Continually working to provide its customers with a superior value package, Caterpillar implemented i2 solutions to automate its value chain processes. Using i2 solutions, Caterpillar has reduced costs, eliminated supply chain inefficiencies, and decreased inventory, and is providing more timely information to its customers.
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