TEA-21 application for $648,000 in FY2000 funding written by Malcolm R. Campbell and Lesa H. Campbell with the kind assistance of the City of Duluth, Gwinnett County, and the Georgia State Department of Transportation. Subsequent implementation assistance provided by Moreland Altobelli Associates, Inc.
Atlanta (April 14, 2000)—Manufacturing software developer Taylor Manufacturing Systems, Inc., today announced HatTrick (tm), an agile factory scheduling solution for growing small- and mid-sized plants that must manage a large number of complex orders in a customer-focused, e-business marketplace.
The Windows(tm)-based system, which will be distributed by Taylor’s value-added partners, draws on Taylor’s long-time shop floor scheduling and monitoring experience and brings demand-driven production functionality to the marketplace at a competitive price.
“HatTrick increases customer responsiveness by offering more accurate promise dates and shorter lead times,” said David Pleak, Vice President of Operations at Taylor. “Shop floor monitoring and the proactive workflow notification of events help plants re-adjust and re-optimize schedules quickly to keep customers satisfied and operations running at peak efficiency,” he said.
HatTrick features a proven scheduling engine based on all constraints, an interactive Gantt chart, real-time connectivity to ERP and MES systems, user-defined rules and weights, and the depth and functionality for modeling complex environments. The software supports Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 on a Windows NT server.
President Neil Taylor said that the new product release comes at a time when business-to-business e-commerce and other marketplace pressures are forcing small- and mid-sized manufacturers to actively address how to make continuous improvements and achieve the optimized production, order visibility, operational reliability, and overall flexibility that are required for a true, customer driven focus.
“No amount of investment in closer ties with customers and suppliers, lean manufacturing initiatives or e-commerce technologies can be fully effective unless the factory is responsive to the new demands placed on it,” Taylor said.
HatTrick will be available in May through participating ERP and MES partners who will also provide deployment, integration, support and consultation services.
“Our partners’ relationship with each customer places them in a unique position to understand the requirements of the enterprise, the supply chain and the plant model,” said Pleak. “This ensures that HatTrick solutions will efficiently address production issues, support manufacturing technology and e-business objectives, and provide measurable cost reductions with a quick return on investment,” he said.
