The Evolution of OTTO

The capabilities found in OTTO aren't a recent "discovery." The Rapid Priority Management (RPM) approach is a time-tested and proven methodology that's evolved over a long period of time.

The first application of these principles (the term RPM is quite recent, the idea's not) goes back to the mid 1960's when well-known manufacturing consultant Dick Ling developed the first version while working as an IBM Systems Engineer in upstate New York.

The logic later became part of the MRPII system developed by Arista Manufacturing Systems - a division of Xerox and pioneer in developing MRPII systems. The capability wasn't appreciated at the time because industry was focused on improving planning. (see "What is RPM?")

On several occasions, Systems Plus founder Jim Rittenmeyer, a longtime Arista employee, provided specifications to customers so they could develop their own 'OTTO' modules as additions to their ERP systems. Two of these are worth describing in some detail.

• In early 1987, a manufacturer of printed circuit boards asked Systems Plus to provide help in improving the performance of their MRPII system. Unlike some products, a circuit board can't be released for "stuffing" if all components aren't available. Their MRPII system was doing a good job of planning components, but much manual checking and analysis was needed to ensure ALL the required parts were on-hand at the start of production. Implementation of a custom 'OTTO' system eliminated the manual checking because potential shortages could be identified early enough to do something about them. The 'OTTO' enhancement contributed greatly to improved planner efficiency and customer delivery performance.
   
• In late 1988, the new president of a pump company called Systems Plus because previous management policies had resulted in a large number of late deliveries and backorders. Furthermore, they frequently weren't aware problems had developed until their customers called about the missed deliveries. The president had been an active user of OTTO's predecessor in the Arista software and asked Systems Plus to help develop similar capabilities. The software was implemented in February of 1989 and shown below is a chart detailing the changes in their monthly shipments.

  

  The only changes made during this time were the deployment of the new tool and the insistence of the president its use would result in dramatic improvements.

These successes (along with several others), coupled with increased pressures to reduce delivery lead-times, improve delivery performance and improve throughput, convinced us there was a need to formalize a software add-on to standard ERP systems.