A lack of simple, effective tools for production scheduling and demand planning, coupled with a growing need for manufacturers to move from build-to-forecast to build-to-order strategies, prompted Jonathan Knight and Ron Drabkin, two former master schedulers from Intel Corp., to join forces with George Roumeliotis to found JRG (San Mateo, CA) in 2001.
Chief Executive Officer Knight, Vice President of Business Development Drabkin and Chief Technology Officer Roumeliotis brought deep operational expertise to the company as they set out to address the limitations in existing supply chain planning products, which range from overly complex, expensive and hard to maintain enterprise applications to the somewhat limited functionality of ERP planning modules and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.
JRG's answer is a hosted, on-demand supply chain planning product designed for the consumer packaged goods industry. The Build-to-Consumption platform offers three views: Factory Scheduler, Performance Manager and Enterprise Planner. Since each view suits different types of workers, "customers typically work with all three," says Knight.
Rather than optimizing the system with custom code for each customer or facility, JRG is data driven and standardized. It also distributes the work so it can be done more efficiently. A synchronization engine ensures all users see the same data. The solution set eliminates the need for customization by "learning" key supply chain dynamics, functions and processes. It also senses changes in demand, provides forward-looking performance management and connects manufacturing operations with corporate and regional offices. Available on demand over the Internet, implementation requires only a few weeks.
"JRG is solving a very real problem for today's manufacturer," says Jane Biddle, vice president of manufacturing research at Aberdeen Group. "Just as customers are demanding faster order delivery times, enterprises are being pressured to reduce their manufacturing costs. The JRG planning workbench makes it easier for planners to schedule orders across plants and, when circumstances change, understand in real-time the impact of rescheduling or adding priority customer orders to the mix. Additionally, as an Internet-based service, the JRG pricing model gives them a cost of ownership advantage over more traditional solutions."
Major customers include Westfarm Dairies (Seattle), the fourth largest dairy in North America, Wise Foods Inc. (Kennesaw, GA) and Weetabix Limited (Kettering, UK), a global cereal manufacturer, which is rolling out the system across all of its plants worldwide.
After only one month of using JRG, Wise Foods cut the time needed to build schedules to one hour. Using pen and paper, "it used to take 10 hours to build a schedule -- three hours of preparation, five hours to build and two hours to create a materials plan," recalls Mike Kopetski, director of logistics at Wise Foods. "Each step of the process was manual and error prone. At first, we were looking to ERP vendors to provide a scheduling solution. But then we realized that ERP systems are really the plumbing. You have to have them to book orders and handle procurement, but, fundamentally, they aren't focused on making your company more dynamic."
Like most ASPs, pricing depends on the number of seats and sites and how much of the suite is turned on, but rates average about $10,000 per month.
JRG is privately funded. Investors include U.S. Venture Partners (Menlo Park, CA), Bay Partners (Cupertino, CA) and Bridger Capital (Boise, ID).