Your PFEP Database = A Plan For Every Part

Ultimately, a good PFEP Database will pay for itself in cost savings.  Initially, there is a cost for program development, but that cost is quickly recouped as your Factory and Warehouse begin to work together in more accurate, efficient ways.  It would be easy to say that "it's all profit from there", but the reality is is that with the greater control and capabilities that a good PFEP system will bring to your organization, you will feel confident in taking the next steps in Lean Manufacturing.  These steps might include things like lowering inventory costs, increasing production speeds, lowering warehousing costs, offering more custom choices to your customers, etc.  When you are building on a solid foundation, your focus will become taking your business to that next level.  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.

The Lean Enterprise Institute is a great resource.  Their book,  "Making Materials Flow", is a good introduction to the concepts that go into a PFEP database, but it is simplified and hypothetical.  It spends a lot of time tracking things like the sizes of your existing material packaging, but in reality it will almost always be cost effective to standardize the Containers used to bring Parts to your Factory's Workstations.  They also explain things in terms of spreadsheets - a really good metaphor for teaching the concepts, but not the best form to use to implement the production system.

It appears so.  Since I don't have any experience with the prebuilt systems, I am NOT including links to them here.  The problem with prebuilt systems is that every factory is unique and a one-size-fits-all program is likely to include many fields to track things that you don't care about.  Inevitably, it will also not track a few critical items that your organization needs.  A generic PFEP isn't likely to correctly work with your ERP and Inventory Management programs right out of the box.  Ultimately, you will end up customizing this system from the outside, redefining what some things mean within the program and maybe still writing some custom "helper programs" that run outside of PFEP to get the job done.  Likewise, your staff and your new PFEP system will need to come to an understanding about what your terminology really means.  Do you store your Parts in a Warehouse, Marketplace, Supermarket or something else?  Are Parts stored in Bins, Boxes, Containers, Crates or something else?  Is a Bin a plastic Container, a location in a Warehouse, a Part delivery method or something else?

No.  Imagine what goes into a big wedding banquet.  You first choose a caterer, based on your past history with them, their own reputation, quality, price, etc.  You discuss the event.  You describe what you'd like for hors d'oeuvres, main courses, desserts, themes, decorations, etc.  They tell you what they do best and give you a chance to sample their offerings.  Together, you come up with a combination of their standard items, along with customized ones (such as your choice of flavors, colors and shape for the wedding cake) for the big event.  You also add things that the caterer hasn't done before - a dish that they'll research and perfect on their own; your grandmother's soup (you'll give the caterer the recipe and they will make it, so that she can enjoy herself on the big day); your uncle's mint candies (he'll make them and bring them early, but the caterer needs to put them out at the right time and in a prominent place, honoring this family tradition).
It would be easier to just pre-order 100 of these and 200 of those, but it's not a whole lot harder for an experienced caterer to prepare the exact meal that you want to serve.  The fundamentals of food preparation and delivery remain the same, whether they are serving their own soup or preparing your grandmother's soup.  The costs of material, labor and space are all about the same, so why not get everything the way that you really want it.
A custom-built PFEP Database comes together the same way.  You tell us what you need.  You show us your facilities and procedures.  We suggest things that might be helpful that may have been overlooked.  We discuss your other systems, such as Inventory Management, that PFEP will need to work with.  We adapt to your company's terminology (possibly suggesting improvements, but ultimately going with what's best for you).  With all of that in mind, we pull together a basic PFEP system, normally in around two months, that will get you started.  We can deliver on this because we have done these sorts of systems so many times in the past.  At this point, the system is good, but probably not as good as it can be.  There may be additional phases to handle some of the special needs of your company, but there also may be additional refinements based on how your people really use your PFEP, further increasing accuracy and efficiency.

It depends on what's involved.  If we are called in early-on in the process, then your company would probably benefit from assistance with many aspects of the conversion to Lean Manufacturing.  Likewise, we will be building a PFEP system that is trying to hit a moving target - i.e. your needs will change throughout the process.  With all that said, it is true that you will get the best, most cost-effective results by calling us in early on in the process.
At the other extreme, Diebold's custom PFEP system took seven billable weeks over a three month period.  This was becuase they were already following Ricardo Garza-Miranda's Material Flow Strategies and Ricardo was on-site and could quickly point out what was unique to Diebold.  This allowed Steven Kovitz of Compuvision to put together a system as quickly as possible with minimal concerns about later changes.  This was a best-case scenario for PFEP, but Diebold had already been working with Ricardo for almost a year on making everything else right before our PFEP development began.
If all of your major real-world issues have been handled and you just need a PFEP system that can tie everything together, then a best-case estimate is eight weeks of billable work over a four month period.  It all starts with a free consultation to discuss your company's current situation, as well as it's future goals.  Based on that meeting, we will have a much better idea of what your PFEP system needs to do and what we will need to know in order to build a PFEP system that does it.  Within the first week, we should have a much better idea about what is do-able in what time-frame.  If any additional time is needed, it will ultimately result in a better Material Flow system.  The question for your company when PFEP work begins is "What if we don't have all of the best answers?  What will we do if we discover that we missed something?"  Usually the questions raised as part of the process of creating PFEP only require simple answers and no unexpected labor.  Sometimes the answers require more programmer time in order to create a more complicated PFEP, but it is more common for questions about things that PFEP doesn't normally do will highlight real-world material handling issues that, finances-permitting, you will probably want to address outside of PFEP.  We don't promise, sight-unseen, a last-minute, fixed-price solution that will handle all of your needs.  Please don't bet on anyone who does.