To the casual observer, job costing is a fairly run-of-the-mill corporate process that might even border on the mundane.
But, as we know, every aspect of business operations is now ripe for digitization and data-driven empowerment… and job costing is an important cog in the wheel of total enterprise automation.
With these ideals in mind, we now find automated production intelligence company Datanomix partnering with digital manufacturing management systems ProShop ERP.
Both firms champion the need to help manufacturers deliver more insights from their operational data.
Takt time targets
The first service/product to come out the new union delivers automated job costing analytics that compare ProShop target ‘takt times’ for part production to actual part performance at the machine.
NOTE: Takt time, or simply Takt, is a manufacturing term to describe the required product assembly duration that is needed to match the demand.
According to kanbanize, “If you receive a new product order every 4 hours, your team needs to finish a product in 4 hours or less to meet demand. Takt time is your sell rate and can easily be categorized as the heartbeat of your work process. It allows you to optimize your capacity in the most appropriate way to meet demand without keeping too much inventory in reserve. The term originates from the German word takt, which means a beat or a pulse.”
The ability to compare ProShop targets to Datanomix actuals and benchmarks offers clarity on gross margin performance on a per-part basis relative to machining operations while highlighting where the greatest opportunities for margin improvement exist.
“Partnering with best-in-breed vendors like ProShop ERP is part of a larger strategy of integrating high-impact sources of data into the Datanomix platform,” stated John Joseph, CEO and co-founder of Datanomix. “We continue to deliver on our vision of being the analytics engine for manufacturing operational data, delivering live end-to-end factory insights that drive business success and empower manufacturers with the digital leverage they need to harvest efficiency. Our partnership with ProShop ERP brings two leading vendors together who share the same values relative to the experience we are trying to deliver for manufacturers.”
A ProShop ERP integration is now available inside the Datanomix platform.
Continuous improvement leadership
By enabling this integration, Datanomix automatically matches part numbers in the machine code to those from the ProShop ERP system and extracts target takt times.
These targets are integrated into the Datanomix Quote Calibration Report to identify opportunities for margin improvement by comparing the ProShop target takt times to Datanomix actuals and benchmarks.
Pre-packaged filters in the report show exactly which jobs to work on such as biggest winners, biggest losers, losers that could be winners & winners with upside — all of which are said to be part of a ‘continuous improvement’ leader’s dream.
“ProShop ERP is built to store and manage the data that’s vital to running a factory, helping manufacturers make better decisions for both their front office and their shop floor,” said Paul Van Metre, co-founder and CEO of ProShop ERP. “What’s important to our customers is what’s important to ProShop – and by partnering with Datanomix, we’re closing a loop that lets our customers tie true machining costs back into our existing job costing and profitability workflows by refining the exact machine utilization times to augment our current labor, out-of-pocket cost and overhead costs.
Van Metre says this gives shared customers a massive advantage in their ability to improve job margins and completely remove the guesswork from this process with the information being provided.
Greg McHale, CTO and co-founder of Datanomix says that knowing how much it really costs to produce parts is the holy grail for precision manufacturers when it comes to job costing and quoting.
Computer numerical control
With Datanomix, manufacturers get operations data directly from CNC (computer numerical control) machines, offering an incorruptible window into actual job performance derived while running parts because there is no operator input required.
A demonstration of the combined solution is available by completing an online form on the Datanomix website.
