Manufacturing companies must uncover opportunities to reduce inventory to stay competitive. One way to reduce excess inventory (without the risk of stocking-out of important parts) is to determine an optimal replenishment cycle. This can be done by identifying which parts would benefit from an eKanban loop replenishment system.

Recently, Modern Materials Handling magazine published a case study of a pet supply company struggling with inventory. Warehouse workers had to physically bring the inventory to a computer to scan it, then send it on to the destination.  The process was “cumbersome and inefficient.” The problem was solved by adding mobile workstations with scanning capabilities. There was a definite, measureable ROI, productivity increased by 40%, with the added benefit of freeing up workers. Warehouse employees now dedicate less time to product movement.  Workers also use the mobile carts as label makers for pallets to save time instead of walking across the warehouse to the workstation to print. 

Mid-May was a busy time for Ultriva. In addition to connecting with our users at our annual Customer Conference, we were an exhibitor at NetSuite’s SuiteWorld 2014. SuiteWorld is Netsuite’s annual user conference for customers, partners, media, and industry analysts in San Jose, California. 

Ultriva Engineering delivered various updates to the Ultriva 7.x software product last year. Some of these updates are minor bug fixes and some are new or enhanced features to the software based on customer inputs. We delivered Ultriva 7.6 recently and this version alone had about 15 new or enhanced features. Almost all of these 15 features grew out of our customer feedback. We take our customer input seriously and quickly incorporate their ideas and requests through our agile product development approach.  In comparison, such releases are uncommon in traditional onsite software products.

Every product release, whether it is a major version or a dot release, is an exciting time for a software development team.  As the development manager leading the Ultriva 7.6 release, we had to go through a different kind of rigor as the enhancements were spread across multiple application modules. 

Some of the key features covered in 7.6 version include auto generation of Purchase Orders in to PDFs, streamlining of production sequencing, inventory cost analysis report, an improved Kanban board and auto resizing wizard. But the feature that is closest to my heart (as I was responsible for its design and development) was Advanced Bill of Lading (BOL). 

My name is Lori McNeely and I am the Customer Support Specialist for Ultriva. My job is to support our customers when they have questions. 

Here at Ultriva we constantly strive to engage with our customers to deliver services that are beyond the norm. About eight months ago we discovered that our customers, who use Ultriva software solutions on a daily basis, do need ongoing training for several reasons: 

Lean in its purest form is removal of waste. In today’s world, manufacturing is becoming more competitive than ever with shorter lead times, higher service levels, exploding number of finished goods SKUs, and thinning margins. Over the last twenty years, the focus of lean in manufacturing was concentrated on streamlining the factory floor, aligning of production lines, optimization of space, and standardizing of operating procedures.

Recently when I was walking through raw material warehouse at a manufacturing facility, I was reminded of the famous verse from “The Rime of Ancient Mariner”, which I had read over 30 years back;

Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, ever where,
Nor any drop to drink

I could metaphorically relate this to the filling of warehouses with bloated inventory while encountering production stoppages due to non-availability of parts.

As director of engineering at Ultriva, I constantly see new requests for our Supply Chain Management Software. Clients ask how is the best way to accommodate the business rules for shipments and scheduling. I love getting these requests because we can accommodate the customer without writing custom programs. Let me explain.

As part of my marketing job with Ultriva, I get to peruse the headlines for manufacturing news. I happened to notice the roster of Manufacturing Day 2013 sponsors recently added four more key support organizations. The Precision Metalforming Association (PMA) and the Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT) are both joining, along with Women in Manufacturing (WIM) and the Precision Machined Products Association (PMPA). That is great news for the backers of Manufacturing Day, now in its second year.