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ABCD Self Assessment checklist

The internationally recognised way to benchmark your planning and control methods

This free, 20 point "ABCD checklist" allows you to benchmark your company's production planning and control processes against current best practice.

Experience has shown that Class “A” companies achieve significant business benefits, increased market share and profitability. The 20 point checklist does not cover every area of business performance but it is our experience that a company's score on these 20 points give a strong indication about the company's overall business performance.

Jargon Warning - If you are not familiar with any of the terms used in this checklist, you can look them up in the Jargon Buster or in the book Business Excellence.

Click here to download the ABCD checklist

How to use this checklist

• You should print and circulate the checklist (which can be downloaded as a .pdf file by clicking the image on the right) to the relevant managers for each to assess independently then meet to agree the score.
   
• Record your score on the summary page at the beginning.
   
• For 6 measures (on time customer deliveries, on time works orders, on time purchase orders, stock record accuracy, bill of material accuracy and routing accuracy) you will be asked to estimate a percentage figure. If you do not know the exact percentage it is worth doing a little research. An honest estimate is better than nothing.
   
• If you do not understand the question you are probably class D!

Self-assessment
To self-assess your status, print out your answers and rate yourself (honestly!) against the following criteria.

• A Class 'D' user is typically one where either MRP is not operated or, if it is, nobody believes the MRP figures. Frequently the store room will have their own record of stock levels that is not connected to the system and that anyone will refer to if they want to find out what is really in stock. Independant records and schedules are a dead give-away to poor data accuracy and a Class 'D' level of performance. Even if all the MRP II bits were in place, the lack of accurate data would render the output worthless. A Class "D" user uses the MRP/ERP package as a (very expensive) typewriter!

• A Class 'C' user may have a pretty good MRP system as was common in the '50s and '60s. The system will launch orders and progress chasers will expedite them according to which customers shout the loudest. They can never be better than Class 'C' because they do not attempt to manage the schedules according to the resources available. The lack of a managed master schedule and integrated capacity planning are class "C" indicators.

• A Class 'B' user will have capacity resource management in place via a sales and operations plan and a managed master scheduling process but the failure to properly control all the elements of ERP / MRP II will typically be shown up by the necessity to have secondary, "off system" priority information to get the 'hot' jobs through production. To be class "B" a company must have at least 95% customer service (question 10a).

• A Class 'A' user must have a class "A" customer service (question 10a), be class "A" on 18 or more out of all the 20 questions on the checklist and will need neither shortage sheets nor progress chasers. Instead, production control and monitoring will typically be carried out using the output from the integrated planning system. The 98% or better customers service will soon become an accepted part of the company's culture. A missed shipment or even a stock error will become a major cause for concern instead of just a way of life.

Use the checklist annually to asses your progress towards class "A".