Your PFEP Database = A Plan For Every Part

You will need to understand how your Material Flow System works.  You will also need to know what your other systems will need to know.  (Will your inventory system need to know when material moves from your warehouse to your factory?  What does it want to know, when does it want to know it and how do you tell it?)  You will need to know how to build a database-based computer program to keep track of everything.  For some help in developing your own PFEP system, follow the ever
expanding chain of Tutorial pages.  They are linked together by Next and Previous buttons on the bottom of each page.

One system has incoming material being stored in an "Overflow" area of the Warehouse.  From there, some of the original shipping containers are moved to a "Secondary" storage area.  After that, parts are moved from the cardboard boxes in the Secondary storage area into durable plastic containers in the "Primary" storage area.  The plastic containers in the Primary storage area of the Warehouse are then moved to a Marketplace location in the Factory.  From the Marketplace in the Factory, the plastic containers are moved to specific locations at specific WorkCenters on the Assembly Lines. (Small containers of parts will probably go on racks.  Larger containers of parts will probably be placed on specific lift-tables or floor locations within the WorkCenter.  When a container becomes empty, it triggers a Kanban event.  That might mean sending an actual Kanban card back to the warehouse, sending a Kanban message to the warehouse or possibly just returning the empty container to the warehouse.

This is a great example of why we say that "one size does not fit all".  Typically, my customers use pre-labeled Containers for small Parts and the empty Containers are simply sent back to the Warehouse from the Factory to be refilled.  For larger, bulk Parts, the same system might be used or we may use actual Kanban cards to trigger getting more Material.  It's possible that instead of using actual cards, notification of the Kanban event is electronically sent from the Factory to the Warehouse.  Of course, PFEP needs to print all of the labels and cards needed for this process.  If we have a set of Containers dedicated to a specific Part at a specific Point-of-Use, then we probably will want some sort of durable label.  If not, then we might want some combination of Kanban cards and temporary labels.

The cards and labels need to contain all of the information required to get the right Part to the right place in as readable and error-proof way as possible.  They will also probably need some additional information that the Inventory and/or ERP systems will need to know about when a Container gets refilled.  Ideally, it might all be summarized in a single bar code, but it might actually be things like Part Number, Warehouse location, Factory location, quantity, etc. in bar code and/or human-readable form.

A good PFEP system does things like tracking Part and Container weights, as well as Container capacities.  I believe that OSHA requires that all Containers that are expected to be lifted by hand weigh 35 pounds or less, but does your company have a lower number?  Likewise, how much weight can each type of container hold?  If it's less that the previous number then that will need to be tracked as well.  When your team wants to put some number of a specific Part in a specific Container, PFEP needs to warn them if they are getting near or going over these limits.