T Card system key to improved stock control
ACCORDING to T Cards Direct, the recent introduction of planning and stock-control boards at Tarmac’s wharves at Greenwich, Erith and Ridham is allowing production staff to achieve greater control over raw materials and finished stock levels. At Greenwich, the boards are already said to be contributing towards stock reductions worth £350,000.
Although stock levels and scheduling can be planned using computerized systems, Tarmac wanted a system that would give a very simple and immediate overview of stock status. The T Cards board allows stock levels to be seen at a glance in a simplistic bar-chart format, allowing processing to be adjusted to respond to any shortfalls or overproduction.
Commenting on the T Cards system, Tarmac change agent Richard Lees said: ‘Operating and updating the card system couldn’t be easier; it gives staff an immediate overview of what tonnage of material is waiting to be delivered right through to under and over stock levels across all grades of finished products. It plays a key role in improving the processing operation.’
The planning board itself is divided into a series of horizontal slots designed to hold special T-shaped cards. At Greenwich the boards have three core sectors – Production Planning (including ship arrival/shipment pending), Finished Stock, and a column showing when the board was last updated. Within the two process sectors there is a further classification with columns for 10mm gravel, 20mm gravel, sand, 10mm ballast and 20mm ballast.
Colour-coded cards, each labelled in weights from 50 tonnes to 10,000 tonnes according to grade, are placed in the correct column as each new production batch is completed, creating a visual ‘bar-chart’ check on processed stock. The placement of minimum and maximum target stock levels in each column also aids process control.
In addition to stock control, the Greenwich site uses contrasting orange cards to flag which ships are waiting to deliver. If the site is overstocked the ships can be routed to other destinations where stock levels are low.
T Cards Direct say a series of standard board configurations already exist for stock control, work in progress, maintenance scheduling or parts on order etc, and that the system is flexible enough to be tailored to a wide range of other applications.
