How do you incorporate customer feedback or demand into production schedules across multiple sites?

1 Define your objectives and metrics

To coordinate production schedules across multiple sites, the first step is to define your objectives and metrics. This includes understanding the goals and priorities of your production process and how you will measure and monitor your performance and progress. Customer satisfaction, production efficiency, production flexibility, and production alignment are all common objectives and metrics that need to be taken into consideration. Specifically, customer satisfaction looks at how well you meet customer expectations in terms of quality, quantity, and delivery time. Production efficiency looks at how well resources are utilized while minimizing waste and downtime. Production flexibility looks at how well you adapt to changes in demand and feedback. Lastly, production alignment looks at how well you synchronize your production activities and schedules across different sites and departments.

3 Implement a standard process and schedule

The third step to coordinate production schedules across multiple sites is to implement a standard process and schedule. This set of rules and guidelines will define how production plans are executed and can help ensure consistency and quality, reduce errors and conflicts, improve collaboration and communication, and streamline the production workflow. Examples of standard processes and schedules include a master production schedule (MPS) that defines the quantity and timing of products for each site and period, a material requirements planning (MRP) that calculates the quantity and timing of raw materials and components for each site and period, and a production schedule that specifies the sequence and duration of production tasks for each site and period.

4 Monitor and evaluate your performance

Monitoring and evaluating your performance is an essential fourth step to coordinate production schedules across multiple sites. This process involves collecting, analyzing, and reporting data on production results and outcomes. Doing so can help you track progress and measure achievements against objectives, identify and address any issues or gaps in the production process, learn from successes and failures to improve practices and strategies, as well as report insights and feedback to stakeholders and customers. Examples of monitoring and evaluation tools include dashboards, reports, charts, graphs, surveys, and interviews that display key performance indicators (KPIs), visualize data patterns, and assess customer feedback.

5 Review and update your production plans

The fifth step to coordinate production schedules across multiple sites is to review and update your production plans. This process involves revising and modifying your production plans based on performance results and feedback, which can help you incorporate changes in customer demand, optimize production efficiency and flexibility, align plans with strategic goals, and prepare for contingencies. Examples of review and update activities include forecasting future demand and supply, reallocating or rescheduling resources and tasks, updating objectives and metrics, and testing different production scenarios.

6 Collaborate and communicate with your stakeholders

The sixth step to coordinate production schedules across multiple sites is to collaborate and communicate with your stakeholders. This process involves engaging and interacting with teams, suppliers, customers, and other parties involved or affected by your production process and schedule. Collaborating and communicating with your stakeholders can help build trust, share information, solicit feedback, and resolve issues. Examples of collaboration and communication tools include meetings and calls, emails and messages, as well as platforms and apps that enable collaboration.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?