OTTO Customer comments
OTTO customers range from manufacturers of high-volume, quick turn-around industrial supplies to major capital equipment and they all share at least one thing in common, a sincere belief that a better way to utilize the data in their current system existed. Their comments will demonstrate how increasing the productivity and effectiveness of knowledge workers leads directly to improved delivery performance. Note that each comment is from a different company.
“OTTO has enabled purchasing to spend their time working with vendors and making arrangements on getting the parts when we need them, not spending their time trying to determine what parts we really need. These proactive actions have helped eliminate surprises in an environment of almost constant change. OTTO has given us the tools to turn our plans into sales dollars.”
Manager of Manufacturing - light poles
“With no major changes other than our new found ability to identify items which were potential causes for delay, we made immediate and measurable improvement. The OTTO software has also helped improve morale of our production and customer service employees. Immediate material requirements are now clear for our production planners and the stress of trying to discern priorities is greatly reduced. With OTTO we are now able to quickly identify all items which are causing or will soon cause a delay in production. With this information our time is spent resolving or preventing the delay. I would recommend the software to any organization as an essential element of their MRP system. Any company that wants to run an efficient and productive manufacturing operation that is committed to responsive, high quality customer service needs the capabilities that OTTO provides.”
Materials Manager - numerical control punch presses
“Now with OTTO I can easily and quickly determine what can be shipped. I spend my time working on shipments instead of trying to gather information!”
Shipping Manager - lawn sprinklers
“We no longer have daily crisis meetings to determine priorities; it allows our planners to plan!”
Materials Manager - welding equipment
“OTTO gives us the agility and speed in making our manufacturing decisions by providing the visibility to see immediate customer needs.”
Vice-president of Manufacturing - abrasive products
“With OTTO the director of manufacturing and the plant managers can easily coordinate truck and production schedules and determine potential delays. On-site visits are to resolve specific problems. If you like completing customer orders on-time then you'll like OTTO.”
VP Operations - upholstered furniture
“In the past I never knew there was a problem with an order until shipping told me. Now with OTTO I tell them one to two weeks ahead of time they're going to have a problem and it tells me what we need to do to avoid the problem.”
Master Scheduler - hosiery
“There really is a 'hole' in MRPII systems regarding hidden problems that can potentially delay an order and blindside a scheduler and those in production, resulting in a less than delighted customer!”
Director of Information Systems - mirrors
“MRPII works fine for individual item control but does not summarize the needs of the project. By utilizing OTTO, we are able to have visibility of the entire project in a summary format that is easy to understand and provides visibility of potential shortcomings.”
Materials Manager - mining equipment
“As Customer Service Manager in charge of replacement parts sales for a manufacturing facility, the OTTO program has enabled me to 'get the whole picture' when it comes to parts orders and backorders. We've been able to dramatically reduce backorders as a result of having OTTO. I can follow-up easily and efficiently with purchasing. Our customer satisfaction is increased with the quicker response time.”
Customer Service Manager - dishwashers
“OTTO is a quick and easy solution to give Planning, Scheduling, Purchasing and Shipping the tools they need to work efficiently. We no longer have daily meetings with Shipping to determine their shortages. We schedule orders quickly, research time to determine material availability has been greatly reduced.”
Materials Manager – hosiery
“I emphasize that producing to a good solid plan in a relatively stable environment should be a walk in the park. The B2B exchanges offer some help from dock door to dock door, that's part of their value, but largely it's really in the control of carriers and distribution centers. That leaves the supply chain as the variable where we can outperform our competition. After it leaves our dock we don't have much control so managing the business from the dock door, back through the plant from an execution standpoint is the key. That's where I see the benefit of OTTO. If we can stand out from the execution side, especially when 'stuff happens' then we become the vendor of choice. The value of excellent execution becomes more and more important.”
Chief Information Officer - hosiery
“One of our major obstacles to completing orders on time is the timing and availability of purchase components when assembly is ready to start their assembly operations. OTTO has been an effective tool in identifying what purchase parts are not available for the next 10 days of production, so that the buyers can make contact with the vendors to ensure that they will at least be able to provide sufficient quantities to keep assembly going. Our buyers are also using a different report within OTTO for key vendors. This report shows the vendors all of the different components and the quantities that are needed in day buckets for the next 10 days. This report also allows our vendors flexibility in what batches they choose to run, so they too can choose the batch size that is compatible with their lean production environments. OTTO provides the execution visibility to support our Lean Manufacturing program.
Vice-president IT - electrical enclosures
“When first introduced to OTTO, you could not prove to me that there was a better system out there than what we already had. Boy what a big wake up call! Being in a very option intensive business and the economy in a very flat or negative state, OTTO is the BEST tool to quickly respond to a customer's needs TODAY. When Millions of dollars are at stake each month, we have to be better prepared to meet the task at hand with fewer people. OTTO is really doing this for us! What normally took us hours or days to identify several indented bill of material shortages now only takes a few moments with the OTTO program. What this really means is that, we do not have to wait for MRP to run each week to plan and reschedule orders. This can be done today! What I'm really saying is that, we can advise Purchasing and Scheduling TODAY without waiting for TOMORROW. We are now able to ship DOLLARS this month and satisfy our CUSTOMERS. Without OTTO in some cases, the Customer would have to wait until next month and potential revenue dollars lost for the month.”
Planning Manager - construction equipment
“With implementation of an MRPII system, we lost visibility of the parent/component relationship on the shop floor that we formerly had. This resulted in very unhappy customers, for although we knew what we needed to ship, days were spent trying to determine where everything in the BOM was to complete the end product. Our business is such that shipping schedules change frequently depending on construction status, and EDI orders are entered daily with very short turn around for delivery. We just do not have those days to spend trying to figure out what to produce to meet those shipping schedules. With the immediate visibility that OTTO provides, the stress was relieved on our associates who were spending those days analyzing the data and feeling like failures because of missed shipments. We regained our former 99%+ customer service rating, and reclaimed our satisfied customers. We have been able to maintain this over 9 years with OTTO.”
Scheduling Supervisor - store fixtures
“OTTO provides us immediate visibility of what we need to produce to meet customer orders. We don't get surprise phone calls anymore from customer service or manufacturing. We spend our time deciding how to do things instead of on the phone or in meetings trying to decide what to do. This is particularly important in the current economy, it's more important than ever to make sure manufacturing is working on the right priorities.”
Materials Manager - furniture fabric
“This is how we're using OTTO”
- High-Level View
- Eliminates the quagmire of data and reports, and isolates our immediate needs and demands.
- Allows us to focus on the true purpose of our business - to service the customer.
- Maximizes our time by providing our current priorities.
- Detailed View
OTTO details the who's, the what's, the when's, and the how's of all my material planning needs. I don't have to go through endless reports, data downloads, excel spreadsheets, and the nebula of green-screens to understand what I need today, and what I will need tomorrow. As our business is becoming more specialized and custom-manufactured, OTTO has personally saved me hundreds of hours of data-mining to understand what priorities are necessary for our manufacturing floor, and what priorities should my suppliers be delivering first.
Master Scheduler - electrical components
“Our planning system worked very well for simple straight forward planning and demand requirements. What OTTO brought to the surface was fine-tuning the complicated large demands with many sub-assemblies to control customer request delivery that increased our customer satisfaction. Supplier control increased directing focus on the true gating items more quickly helping by increase supplier performance , prioritizing is simplified based on faster accurate data.”
Purchasing/Planning Manager - medical cables
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