At the Heart of Manufacturing by Mastering Shop Floor Operations

Join us on this week's episode of Planet Odoo, where Richard Shall sits down with Charlotte Dendoncker, one of Odoo's MRP experts. Dive into the world of shop floor management and discover how this crucial aspect of manufacturing can revolutionize your business operations. Charlotte and Richard explore the essential elements of shop floor management, from real-time visibility and inventory tracking to the integration of quality control and lean manufacturing principles.

Whether you're a small business owner or part of a larger enterprise, this episode is packed with insights on optimizing workflows, enhancing production efficiency, and the importance of maintaining flexibility in your processes. Learn how Odoo's comprehensive tools can streamline your manufacturing operations and provide the data-driven decisions needed to stay ahead in the market.

Perfect for anyone involved in manufacturing or looking to improve their shop floor management, this episode promises to offer valuable tips, practical advice, and a deeper understanding of how to leverage technology for better business outcomes.

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Concept and realization: Ludvig Auvens
Recording and mixing: Lèna Noiset, Judith Moriset
Host: Richard Shall

Transcript

Charlotte Dendoncker: 0:01

When you open the shop floor, you only see what you can work on. So it will be the operation that are confirmed, where you know that you have the components. And so it's not mixed with all the orders you might have that are maybe lacking components. You can have the most functional tool if your team and your user don't know how to use it, then it won't be used and it won't be efficient. When we speak about customization, it means that the production will be a bit more complex and there will be more variety in it. Usually with product customization, it won't be just like the shop floor. It will take place in in a complete flow because it will start from usually a customer demand with some specific requirements.

Richard Shall: 0:45

Hello Odooers, and welcome back to planet Odoo. I am your host, Richard Schall, and we are pleased to have you for this week's episode. Today we welcome Charlotte de Donk, one of Odoo MRP experts here in Belgium. Together we will be discussing the fun yet complicated topic of Shopfloor management. You ready? So let's please welcome Charlotte. Hello, Charlotte.

Charlotte Dendoncker: 1:05

Hello.

Richard Shall: 1:06

Welcome to the studio. Thank you. So today we're talking about the shop floor management. And maybe some of our listeners don't really know what that means. Could you help explain that a little bit.

Charlotte Dendoncker: 1:14

Yeah for sure. So shop from management. It's about the control and the execution of manufacturing activities that will take place on the shop floor on the production area of a company.

Richard Shall: 1:25

Okay. So it's not like one of those boutique shops where I'm shopping for clothes. It's an actual manufacturing floor.

Charlotte Dendoncker: 1:30

Yeah, indeed.

Richard Shall: 1:31

Okay. And I imagine most large businesses already have something like this in place.

Charlotte Dendoncker: 1:37

Yeah, I think it's important because the shop floor management will help you to track a lot of things. So all your workflows link with inventory that we will discuss later and so on. So it's complicated to not have a tool to help you in that in that process.

Richard Shall: 1:52

Okay. So it's more about okay, the different steps that are taking place, who's doing what and where. Right.

Charlotte Dendoncker: 1:59

Yeah, indeed. So the idea of the shop floor is to have an easy view of the process that you need to follow the instruction of each operations that you need to do to produce a product and to know who needs to do it and where in which machine equipment, work centers and so on.

Richard Shall: 2:16

Okay. So then this is also something that a small business would need to implement. Is that correct?

Charlotte Dendoncker: 2:20

Yeah for sure. It will definitely help them to to have a better workflow and to be more efficient.

Richard Shall: 2:27

And if I understand correctly, then it's more than just understanding from a management perspective, okay, this is what's being produced today, etc.. It's it's more for the actual day to day workers who are actually doing the work. Is that correct?

Charlotte Dendoncker: 2:39

Yeah, indeed. And as you said, there are several actors in that. There's like the production manager, uh, the people that will launch the manufacturing orders, and then there's the operators, the ones that will really, um, do and process the operations and that they will really track the operation that are going on. It can be the same person in some, some places, but it can be also a huge group with different, uh, different people.

Richard Shall: 3:04

Okay. Uh, it makes sense. And so I imagine with the smaller businesses, they might say I'm not big enough for having to manage and maintain my shop floor system in a more effective way. What would you say to that?

Charlotte Dendoncker: 3:16

Well, I think it depends not just about the size of the company, but the shop floor. It will help you to to increase the shop floor management by linking your inventory by, um, being able to, to uh, so yeah, to track the components, the, the product that you will produce to make some quality controls and so on. And this can be really useful no matter the size of your company.

Richard Shall: 3:39

So it's a bit more useful than Excel would be.

Charlotte Dendoncker: 3:42

Yes I think a bit more complete. Yes.

Richard Shall: 3:45

So what are some of the main common challenges that small manufacturers face when it comes to managing a shop floor?

Charlotte Dendoncker: 3:51

Yeah, so a first challenge they can face is the lack of real time visibility. Because without this real time visibility, you might miss some information that are important, such as tracking the inventory levels, uh, to see the production progress, to see where you are at, where people are, um, are assigned, and so on. And being able to track all those things helps you to make a more informed decision and help you to improve your processes in overall. So it's important to have this visibility. You can also have some challenges of tracking the product. Maybe you need to track them, uh, with serial numbers and so on. So it's important to know where are your products. And also just to, um, to make your process more efficient in a general way.

Richard Shall: 4:38

Okay. So to essentially the idea is to have a fully integrated system or something that is updated real time to have a good overview of what's happening on the shop floor so you can make informed decisions that can impact your the way you work or your business.

Charlotte Dendoncker: 4:55

Yeah, indeed. So the idea is to see what is going on right now. Where and who is doing what.

Richard Shall: 5:02

Okay, great. And so what we one of the challenges we also have to take is blending or merging software and business concepts such as lean manufacturing is one term I've heard. Can you explain more about what lean manufacturing is and how it applies to the shop floor?

Charlotte Dendoncker: 5:19

Yes for sure. So lean manufacturing, it comes from the Toyota Production System, and it's a methodology that aims to minimize the waste that you can have in your processes by maximizing the efficiency of your, of your processes. And so it relies on different principles, um, such as the standardized work. So the idea is to achieve, to make a standardized way of working that is automated and repetitive so that the operators and the users, the people that will work, know what they need to do, and so they save time in that matter. But next to that, you also have the principle of continuous improvement. So it's named Kaizen in the lean manufacturing methodology. And the goal is that you try a little by little to see where you can minimize the waste and so improve your process. And so it can be in different areas. It can be like on a visual aspect. So maybe make a guidelines that will be clearer to your operators. It can be in a physical way like maybe a store in a different way your product, so that it takes less time to take them and then produce them. So the goal is really to think of ways to improve the process continuously, because you can always do better and save some, uh, some time and cost and so on. Okay.

Richard Shall: 6:39

So if I understand you correctly, having a good system in place to manage your shop floor really allows you to get information on where you can improve processes and be a bit better and remove some waste, essentially to streamline everything. Kind of like a conveyor belt system. Fascinating. And then so how can Odoo help integrate these kind of concepts into the software?

Charlotte Dendoncker: 7:04

Well, um, you have the possibility with Odoo to really design your workflow. Uh, it's quite flexible. So you will start by, uh, configuring your bill of material with the finished product that you need to produce all the components that you need to use. And next to that, you can design some operations with a specific order. So all the steps that you need to follow to produce a finished product at each step. You can also add some quality control if you really need to verify the state of a product. And so all those things will design a specific flow that you will always follow for a specific product. And so, in that manner, it helps with the standardized work. So you know what you need to do. You can also put some instructions and so on so that the workers are not lost. Uh and it helps them in their daily daily work.

Richard Shall: 7:51

Okay. So essentially, we have all this user-generated data, but mostly configurations such as products build materials to feed into the system to automatically create the next order and the next steps, uh, in a concise flow. Is that correct?

Charlotte Dendoncker: 8:06

Yeah, indeed.

Richard Shall: 8:07

And what kind of key challenges are there when it comes to setting something like this up?

Charlotte Dendoncker: 8:12

Um, I think the main challenge is to not do too much, because with Odoo and especially with the manufacturing app, you can make a lot of configuration, but it can be a bit of a killing. Um, compared to what is the the reality of things. So it's not because, in reality, you have five operations to follow that you need to have five operations on Odoo. So you really need to think, um, what is important to appear on the system, uh, will it apply to who will do what and so on. Okay.

Richard Shall: 8:45

So we can essentially streamline it a bit when it comes to, okay, you know, I actually need five steps. You just need one maybe. Okay. And we're talking more about like a straight line manufacturing process. Right. So it goes through step one through step five. Are there scenarios where that's not true.

Charlotte Dendoncker: 9:00

Yeah for sure. So here it's in the case where we have uh really like a smooth workflow for a finished product. That will be always the same. Um, and so in that regard it can go quite fast. We know what we need to do, but obviously sometimes, um, we can have firstly some issues in our production, uh, some things we cannot anticipate. Maybe you will have a work center that won't work on the morning. So you need to be able to react and so on. And so you will need to be able to adapt a bit your workflow to be able to still produce. And next to that, you can also have some products that might have different ways of being produced. You can have some, uh, customizable product as well.

Richard Shall: 9:40

And what you mean by customizable products. So I guess how would I approach a product that has different color options or different size options?

Charlotte Dendoncker: 9:46

Well, um, it's a good question. So when we speak about customization, uh, it's, it means that the production will be a bit more complex and there will be more variety in it. So we need to be able to adapt it accordingly. And so, uh, usually with product customization, it won't be just like the, the shop floor. It will take place in a, in a complete flow because it will start from usually a customer demand, uh, with some specific requirements. And from there we need to be able to, uh, to construct something to, to, uh, adapt a flow. So we will maybe build a new bill of material. We will need to buy something and so make a kind of link with, uh, what we need to purchase and replenish. We need to be able to communicate with other departments, with engineers and so on. And then at some point, we will start to build a this product. But maybe we don't know yet what are the steps that we need to follow because it's a new product. And so with the shop floor, we need to be able to um, to kind of a flexibility to, to know, okay, I have those steps to follow, but maybe I need to add another step that I didn't need to do before. Um, yeah. And to, to construct it at the end and to have this flexibility to, to handle, uh, a workflow that can be different from time to time. Okay.

Richard Shall: 11:04

So then it also means that on any given day, based off of, uh, I mean, accidents happen, the machine stops working or big order comes in, or maybe another order is taking over. You can adjust and, uh, be more flexible in terms of which steps you take when you manufacture.

Charlotte Dendoncker: 11:21

Yeah. And it's, I think, very important to keep this flexibility, uh, because customers, they, they tend to want to automate things, uh, as the most possible. And obviously, it's important to automate where we can because you can save time, but sometimes it can, um, a bit overkill the process. Because when you have things you cannot anticipate, when you have corner cases, it's important to keep this flexibility. Otherwise, you are stuck. And then, uh, the, the tool that you might have won't replicate the reality. You might have some inaccuracies, mistakes, and so on. So it's really important to keep this flexibility to adapt on your tool. What is really going on uh, in the reality.

Richard Shall: 12:01

Right. Okay. Because what I always told people is that, uh, automation kills flexibility. So this is just a very good example. And you maybe have examples of scenarios where this was true or um, I don't know.

Charlotte Dendoncker: 12:12

If I have a concrete example, but I've already had cases from customers where they want to know what happens if, for instance, we have a quality control that we need to make and it fails, uh, what happens then? What what do we do? Uh, does everything stops or not? Well, in the case of Odoo, we won't block the whole process, but then the customer can just block the line on which, uh, is or she is working and then take the decisions accordingly. Maybe the problem will get fixed so I can launch again my work center. Maybe I want to switch, uh, for equipment so I can have different solutions for my issues.

Richard Shall: 12:50

That's very good. And considering that, uh, stopping production can be life-threatening for a business. And so being able to adapt to each case is good. Uh, amazing. So then, how you mentioned quality control? Like, how does that come into play here?

Charlotte Dendoncker: 13:03

Well, quality control can be very important for some businesses. For some industries you have regulation that you need to follow. It's like a. Your requirements so you cannot avoid them. And so it's important to have a tool that will help to to take those quality control into consideration. For instance, I have a customer. Sometimes they had to reject some offers from their customer because they couldn't meet the quality requirements. Um, and because they didn't add the right tool to, uh, to follow those quality and to have the right reporting and so on. And so, yeah, it's important to have a tool where you can follow some points in your processes where you can make quality, as we call them, in Odoo quality control points. So you can really have a specific measures or um, or worksheets and so on of what you need to control. And depending on that it can be good or bad. And you can also have some reporting about that. And so from that you can also make some decisions. And next to the things that you configure in your flow, you can also each time uh I mean when you have the issue, uh, make a quality alert to say, okay, now I have an issue, I need to record it somewhere. I need to report it. Uh, and thanks to that, you know that you had an issue. And you know why? Um, so you have this information.

Richard Shall: 14:18

So quality control is very important for most of these businesses. And so I imagine that if you don't meet the quality control, you, as you said, you don't just stop the production flow. You can move on. You have a bit more flexibility there. And so we've already expanded the need of the shop floor beyond just okay, your workflow. It's more of now. We also need to check the quality of this. And how does that go further. How do we extend the integration with the shop floor.

Charlotte Dendoncker: 14:42

So yeah so we discussed about the quality. But obviously there are some areas that you need to to take into consideration with the shop floor. Um, because it's not just one manufacturing order that you will process, but it needs to have a link with other things such as the inventory and the purchase. So it's very important to take that into consideration. So thanks to to the inventory you can know what you have in stock as components. You can know where are your products. Yeah, how much you have in stock and what will be the stock of your finished product. But you can also see if you are missing some components then okay, what can you do. You don't have the components you need to replenish them. And so you need to define the strategy. In that case do you need to buy it from suppliers. Do you need uh yeah. Do you want to automate this process or not. So we really need to take the whole picture here to, to have the complete, uh, workflow.

Richard Shall: 15:34

So a good shop floor, uh, system will essentially be already integrated with things like an inventory system or a purchase system so that as you replenish inventory, you always know, okay, what order can be worked on, what order needs to be waited on, and maybe even adjust the, uh, when orders are completed. Is that correct?

Charlotte Dendoncker: 15:52

Yeah, indeed. And the idea, uh, at least in Odoo, is when you open the shop floor, you only see what you can work on. So it will be the operation where you that are confirmed, where you know that you have the components. And so it's not mixed with all the orders you might have, uh, that are maybe lacking components. And, um, in a more general way, you will always have some filters in order to see for which manufacturing orders, uh, are you lacking components? Will there will be late, or do you have everything so you can plan everything accordingly?

Richard Shall: 16:26

Amazing. And it's very good for these agile businesses that always need to be quick about what they're doing. So I imagine then that also means there's a lot of information in a good system like this. And how can information or data really help improve a shop floor manufacturer? Yes.

Charlotte Dendoncker: 16:42

I think, uh, the main idea is that the more you have, uh, information, the more you can make accurate decisions related to that. And so here in manufacturing, you have a lot of KPIs that are accessible, uh, related, for instance, to the, to, to the inventory, like the cycle times and so on. Uh, regarding manufacturing, you can, um, have a look at the scrap rate of your product. So you see the what are the products where you have the most issues. You can also have a good understanding of the root causes of your quality alerts and so on. And by seeing that, you can decide, okay, you can make conclusions and adapt and improve your your workflow.

Richard Shall: 17:25

Okay. So the goal essentially would be to produce as quickly as possible to, of course, manufacture as quickly as possible and then find the improvements that could be made or the efficiencies gained. Um, are there any other aspects that can improve this data?

Charlotte Dendoncker: 17:39

Another topic that is really important, I think, is the ergonomics of the of the tool that you will use because you can have the most functional tool if your team and your user don't know how to use it, then it won't be used and it won't be, it won't be efficient. And so it's important, when we speak about shopfloor management to have an interface where the user, the operator, can easily know where they need to click, what's the next step? Because usually, I mean, they can be in a rush. Uh, as we said, we can have some issues that we could not anticipate. So we need to be able to react quickly. And so the ergonomics takes a huge part because we need to see clearly what we need to do.

Richard Shall: 18:24

Okay. So while data is important from a high level perspective, we also need to think about the day to day work and how they interact with the software. So if I don't know how to click the right button obviously we're going to slow down production.

Charlotte Dendoncker: 18:36

Yeah indeed.

Richard Shall: 18:37

Okay okay. So that means the UI is super important. And so with all that data in the UI, we're going into more production planning in a larger scale. Again. So how can Odoo help optimize that.

Charlotte Dendoncker: 18:48

So production planning is very important. And it takes into consideration a lot of things um, related to to manufacturing. So it's not only just say, okay, I'm going to plan this, uh, work order this operation. At that moment, I need to know if I have my components, I need to know who is available to do it, and so on. And so in Odoo, we have this, uh, production planning per work center where you can easily see, uh, where you have placed to put some more production and what is already taken. And so Odoo will also also always plan, uh, depending on your capacity on your work center, and will put the operation at the first, uh, slot that is available so that you are sure that you are the most efficient as you can be, and you don't lose time because, you know, uh, when you can plan things depending also on the components availability, um, and the place you have on your work centers, your equipment.

Richard Shall: 19:43

So something like Odoo, it's a very comprehensive software with a lot of moving parts. And I imagine some small businesses might look at this as a daunting endeavor to set up, I guess. How would you approach a small business who's a bit intimidated by something like this?

Charlotte Dendoncker: 19:58

Well, I think the the goal is to always keep in mind what is the added value of doing this. So I think businesses should ask themselves what are the pain points? And do they struggle in some things? Um, and not be afraid because the idea of implementing a system such as Odoo is to not, uh, put all the configuration that exists in one time, it's really to do it progressively, and it's really a related to the customer business because we speak about shop floor, but maybe some, uh, some business won't use it and they will just use manufacturing orders. So they just want to track the inventory levels and they can start with that. And maybe after some time they can track the operations, and maybe after some times we can add quality steps and so on. So we don't need to do everything at once. Um, but we, we need to keep in mind that it's for the best and it's for, it's in order to have an added value at the end.

Richard Shall: 20:54

Okay, so it's more about how you phase the project. Can I have dipping your toe in a little bit, going a little bit slowly over time to build it out to the full scope you're talking about. Yes. So then we're going more into the implementation side of things. What are the best practices you have for for implementing a shop floor management system?

Charlotte Dendoncker: 21:12

Yeah, I think the the first thing is for the the customer to ask himself, why does he need a system such as Odoo, what is the reason behind and to also maybe rethink the processes? I think it's a time to to see where are the rooms of improvements and then us. As business analysts, we need to really analyze in depth what are the current processes of the customer, but we need to avoid to replicate. So really similarly the reality in Odoo and really think, okay, we have those pain points we need, we want to improve those points. And so we will implement that and do those configuration and not do too much if it's not needed.

Richard Shall: 21:54

So it's more of a replace not replicate. And it goes beyond just okay, let's configure the system. We need to really challenge them or ourselves about okay. Are we doing it the right way.

Charlotte Dendoncker: 22:06

Yeah for sure. And I think it's like a a common work. It's not just one part that does that does all the work. It's really working together to, to, to arrive at some point where we have a flow that that is fitted to the customer business, obviously, and to have a tool so Odoo that will be configurated to help them to, to save some time and to have everything integrated and okay.

Richard Shall: 22:30

Which makes sense. It's exactly what we do on a daily basis. So then how do you, I guess, approach the challenge of but our system works just fine the way it is.

Charlotte Dendoncker: 22:37

Well, it might be one of the most complex things like the change management. Sometimes we have customers, so we have like one person of contact on their side that that is uh, maybe convinced that they will use Odoo, but maybe there are other people on the team, especially in manufacturing. Sometimes you have, uh, operators that will need to use it. And maybe they're really they're not really it friendly or. Yeah, maybe their, their own habits. And I think it's the most complex thing because as I said earlier, with ergonomics, it's not just the fact to have a good system, but people need to adapt it. And so I think there's a lot of change management to, to make, um, and to the important is that the future user, they need to understand why we're doing it and to show them the added value of the, of the software.

Richard Shall: 23:25

And so how would you show them the added value? Well, then it depends.

Charlotte Dendoncker: 23:28

Uh, it's a bit case by case, but to show them that they can save really a lot of time, that can have all the information that is centralized, that you can have clear guidelines about what you need to do. And sometimes it can make a really big difference, which.

Richard Shall: 23:42

Makes sense, I guess it depends on who you're talking to. Right? So if you're management, you're talking more about the reporting, the benefits of the efficiency, etc. but then the ergonomics is for the end user who's actually clicking the button. Yeah. The next button. Okay. Great. So to kind of add more, uh, flesh to this, what kind of do you have examples of businesses that successfully implemented, uh, shop floor management?

Charlotte Dendoncker: 24:06

Actually I have two examples with two different topics related to that. So the first one is a customer that was, uh, only using Excel for everything. And they had a lot of issue with their inventory tracking because they didn't know what the, the, the produced in terms of components, uh, tracking and so on. And they really saw the difference by using Odoo, uh, to be able to see what were the current inventory levels. And so they really, uh, it really saved them a lot of time. And I have another example, um, more regarding quality, uh, quality controls. Uh, so I have this customer where they didn't add any, uh, any concrete way to record their quality processes. So there there were some contracts that they couldn't take, uh, because they couldn't meet those criteria. And by implementing those quality control points with Odoo, uh, they were able to provide this reporting to the necessary authorities and to, uh, yeah, to, to win some contracts at the end of the day.

Richard Shall: 25:06

Amazing. So we have definitely a few customers successfully implementing Odoo. Yes. Now, we've talked about the complexity of a shop floor management system because it can be integrated with inventory purchase, uh, manufacturing, etc.. Are there any other integrations that we need to be aware of?

Charlotte Dendoncker: 25:23

Yeah, I think those are the main ones. So indeed, you have uh, the most important one is with the inventory, uh, because you see the stock and so on, but you have links. So with the quality, as we have discussed with the product life cycle management directly, can you.

Richard Shall: 25:37

Add more about the product life cycle.

Charlotte Dendoncker: 25:38

Management. Yeah for sure. So product life cycle management, it allows you to follow all the the life cycle of a product as its name indicates. And so the idea is that you can either create and design a complete new product in. And the goal is to really keep track of all the changes and the documentation that you will add for this product. Um, yeah. And you will have a version at the end of this process. But you can also from a product that you currently have, decide to ameliorate it by creating what we call an eco engineering change order in Odoo to ask for a change and to update it, maybe add components, change components, add operation, and so on. And thanks to the shop floor, you can create those Ecos directly, um, to improve these products.

Richard Shall: 26:29

Okay, so very comprehensive. Um, fantastic. Well then are there any more final tips, tricks or words of advice for any shop floor or small manufacturer implementing this?

Charlotte Dendoncker: 26:40

So one of the key message here is about the flexibility. So with shop floor you can do a lot of things and you can really standardize your processes which saves you a lot of time. But you can keep this flexibility to really stay close to the reality of the fields, as we have discussed earlier. But we need to keep in mind that the ERP is important, but the ergonomics are as well, and also the processes itself. Um, it's important to always improve and seek to reduce the the waste and the cost that we might have in our processes.

Richard Shall: 27:16

Which makes sense. Stay flexible and reevaluate your processes just to make sure it works as effectively as possible. Great. Great advice. Well, thank you again so much for joining us today Charlotte. Appreciate it.

Charlotte Dendoncker: 27:26

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Richard Shall: 27:27

Well that's it for this week's episode and we hope you enjoyed our discussion. And learn more about how effective shop floor management can help you grow your business. And if you enjoy learning about MRP and other inventory related topics, then you'll be pleased to know that we have a bunch of fresh new episodes coming out soon. Until then, keep exploring, stay curious, and as always, stay awesome.