Book Reviews

Manufacturing Data Structures

Building Foundations for Excellence with Bills of Materials and Process Information

By Jerry Clement, Andy Coldrick, and John Sari

Reviewed by Steve Buchwald, CIRM

Building Foundations for Excellence with Bills of Materials and Process Information and that is what it is all about. It is part of the Oliver Wright collection of works and it is full of the latest techniques on how to build an information data structure that supports the entire business.

The authors believe that a thorough knowledge of the business is necessary if the correct data foundation is to be built. They believe a solid manufacturing data foundation must:

• represent the manufacturing process
• represent the products sold and the strategies and plans for satisfying the customers
• be understood by all users
• be complete and accurate
• be supported by good change control practice

In the opening overview they further state that "Manufacturing Resource Planning basically requires three things:

• People who understand its use
• An accurate, complete data foundation
• The right software

They go on to say that at the core of an MRP II system is a set of computer logic that asks three basic questions:

• What are we going to make?
• What does it take to make it?
• What do we have?

It is the answer to these questions that enable the system to determin what is needed and when. However, it is not the purpose of this book to exhaust the MRP II discussion.

This book is dedicated to question #2 - How does a business define its data requirements to support its manufacturing processes and its customerís needs? Getting the foundation right is of utmost importance but is not an easy task. Change is difficult and is usually met with much resistance. In addition, what is correct for one company might not be correct for another. Therefore, the authors of this book have designed it as a "working book" It is to be used for reference so that the general recipe for excellence can be added to the internal knowledge base and applied to any specific environment.

The book is divided into nine chapters including the overview. I think that the chapters titles will give you a good feel for the type and depth of information included. Chapters two through nine are:

• Defining the Manufacturing Process
• Defining levels in The Bills of Material and Routings
• Achieving Accuracy and Complete
• Planning Scheduling and Controlling the Plant Using the Data Foundation
• Modularizing the Bill of Material
• New Product Introduction and Custom Manufacturing
• Managing Engineering Change Control
• Implementing Change

In addition to the nine chapters, there are five appendices dealing with:

• By-products and Co-products;
• Preventive Maintenance;
• Refurbishing, Remanufacturing, and Reconditioning;
• Reprocessing; and
• Tool Requirements Planning.

This is a very complete book with great information and it is fast reading. And even though the chapter on modularizing the bill of materials could be a little less detailed, all in all the book is not overly heavy with unimportant technical information.

Good reading!