The decision making process surrounding new facilities or product lines requires the operation’s cost structure and cash requirements to be accurately evaluated. Product pricing, product mix, and production ramp rates are just a few of the many considerations facing strategic planners. Factory Commander® is a Cost and Resource Evaluation software platform that provides a fast and efficient method to reduce decision risk and uncertainty. Because Factory Commander® relies on Activity Based Cost Management (ABCM) principles, it effectively identifies the major activities that drive product costs. By providing high-level economic projections such as income and cash flow statements, senior management is able to anticipate market and cost drivers and make accurate strategic decisions based on a strong analytic foundation.
A Unique Solution to Complex Decisions
Factory Commander® performs high level analysis of factory capacity, individualized product costs, overall factory costs, while handling such sophisticated manufacturing strategies as multiple subassembly mergers and full rework loops. Independent evaluation has shown that Factory Commander® is superior in accuracy and ease of use compared to proprietary software and home-grown spreadsheet solutions. Its technology-neutral design allows Factory Commander® to be easily applied to any business environment. Common applications include:
- Capacity Planning
- Product Costing
- Strategic Planning
- Resource Planning
- Product Positioning
Feature Rich Application
Sensitivity Analysis allows the user to rapidly examine numerous “what if” scenarios by automatically varying input parameters and assessing the range of possible results. Model inputs can change over user-defined time frames to more accurately reflect productivity and yield learning curves and other time-variant cost factors. Factory Commander® can also represent multiple buildings in a single model allowing production allocation between two or more physical plants.
Bound the possible outcomes of each scenario
Further, Factory Commander® provides built-in data integration with other applications including Wright Williams & Kelly’s TWO COOL® cost of ownership (COO) and overall equipment efficiency (OEE) software and Factory Explorer® capacity analysis and discrete event simulation platform as well as other applications utilizing the Test Bed data format. Custom integration with Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, and other proprietary and commercial applications is also available.
Answer Your Critical Business Questions
Factory Commander® is designed to answer your key business questions:
- Is this a profitable venture?
- What do my products cost to produce?
- What size facility should I build?
- How much equipment do I need to meet production demands?
- What are my staffing requirements?
- How will a new product impact costs and resources?
- What is the cost impact of productivity improvements?
Designed with the User in Mind
Factory Commander® is a stand-alone program with a simple and straight forward user interface utilizing “Explorer” style navigation, pull down menus, tabbed dialog boxes, and on-line help. Like-inputs are grouped for easy access and data entry. Factory Commander® also provides an import/export function to allow data entry and output to more than ten different file types. Pre-formatted spreadsheet data entry templates are also included to speed data collection and model execution.
“Explorer” Style User Interface Improves Productivity
Don’t let the complexity of large-scale investments grind your decision-making process to a halt. Join the list of Fortune 500 companies that are achieving multi-million dollar savings. Factory Commander® is the standard for leading IC, flat panel display, magnetic media and solar panel manufacturers, equipment and material suppliers, and 300mm consortia.
Factory Commander® is supported by the world’s leading operational modeling software and services provider, Wright Williams & Kelly, Inc. Whether you need a software tool or a staff of on-site manufacturing experts, we provide the most cost effective solutions to your business needs.
Call today for more information from Wright Williams & Kelly, Inc. Providing software solutions for productivity measurement and enhancement since 1991.
REPORT & GRAPH OUTPUT
The following figure shows some of the type of standard reports integrated into Factory Commander®:
Report Output – Product Cost by Category
Graphical Output – Cumulative Annual Cash Flow
Graphical Output – Equipment Manufacturing Utilization
Graphical Output – Unit Cost by Category (wafer fabrication)
INPUT SCREENS & INTERFACE
The following is a representative set of input screens:
Data Input – Production Demand
Data Input –Building & Facility Capital
Data Input – Process Step List
Data Input – Equipment Capital Costs
