The Order to Cash Lifecycle and the New MESA Model – Part 2

Authored by John Clemons, MESA Marketing Committee Chair, based on an interview with Katerina Yamalidou, MESA Model Sub-Committee Member 

The new MESA International Smart Manufacturing Model has a section on the order to cash lifecycle. The order to cash lifecycle might not be thought of as pertaining directly to manufacturing operations, but when you think about it, you realize the order to cash lifecycle intersects with all the other manufacturing lifecycles: product, production, production assets, personnel, and supply chain.

Understanding those intersections is key to understanding the complete Smart Manufacturing picture. So, despite what some people may think, including the order to cash lifecycle in the new MESA Smart Manufacturing Model actually makes a lot of sense.

Let’s continue our look at some of the questions that’s going to be answered in the new MESA Smart Manufacturing Model about the order to cash lifecycle.

“How do we source our own requirements, taking into account vendor performance in terms of cost and reliability?” Vendor performance is in a state of flux. Many aspects of vendor performance have been impacted by the pandemic. But you have to meet your customer demands and blaming problems on your vendors isn’t a good answer.

“How do we optimize the capture of goods into our systems, to ensure immediate availability for production purposes?” There’s a lot of challenges to unpack in this question. And if you think there’s an easy answer you probably don’t really understand the question. Speed and agility are the ultimate answers but that’s always easier said than done.

“How can we capture information on the production floor, to support real-time decision-making?” The question here isn’t really “how” because there’s lots of ways to capture data. The issues are how capture the right data, how to turn that data into information, and how to get the right data to the right people at the right time so they can make the right decisions in a timely manner.

“How do we make use of real-time production and process information to predict potential quality deviations?” Real-time production and process information is vital to managing the manufacturing operations. But using it to make predictions is taking it to a whole new level. Again, there’s some good technology available in the Smart Manufacturing toolkit to help us here.

“For industries where production throughput is dependent on the size of the work force, how can we dynamically plan resources in the most efficient and effective way?” Work force issues continue to plague the manufacturing industries. It wasn’t enough that the workforce was, and still is aging, dramatically with key manufacturing knowledge walking out the door at the retirement party. Now, with the pandemic, resources and staffing are more difficult than ever and there’s no light at the end of this tunnel anytime soon.

“How can we speed up the process where material produced on the plant floor becomes available in the dispatch system, as soon as it leaves the plant floor?” Again, there’s a lot of challenges to unpack in this question. And no easy answers. Speed and agility continue to be ultimate answers but getting there is the difficult part.

The new MESA Smart Manufacturing Model is under development and will be released soon. It has sections on the product, production, production assets, personnel, and supply chain lifecycles. And it has a section on the order to cash lifecycle.

If you’re intrigued by the questions being addressed by the section on the order to cash lifecycle, then the new MESA International Smart Manufacturing Model is for you.

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