ZDAS innovates its planning system by deploying LOGIS Production Planner

The engineering-metallurgical complex ŽĎAS, a well-known Czech manufacturer of rolling mill equipment, forming machines and tools, carried out a significant upgrade of its Advanced Production Planning and Scheduling (APS) system. The new planning system is now operational and enabling ŽĎAS to manage production in a more flexible, efficient and reliable way.

ŽĎAS has been using advanced production planning technologies for nearly 20 years. As early as 2006, ŽĎAS started to plan production using i2 Factory Planner and thus became one of the first companies in the Czech engineering industry to use APS technology for production management.

In 2023, ŽĎAS decided to significantly upgrade its planning system in order to make its production management capabilities even more efficient, reliable and flexible in response to changes in the production and business situation. The backbone of the upgraded planning system is the APS tool LOGIS Production Planner.

“Despite the major transformation that ŽĎAS had to overcome as part of the innovation, the implementation of the new planning system did not encounter any major obstacles. This was undoubtedly helped by the quality of preparation on the part of ŽĎAS, which consumed only 16 man-days of the specialists of LOGIS during the innovation. This makes ŽĎAS the most rapid planning system innovation we have encountered to date,” adds Prokop Havlík, Sales Director for Discrete Manufacturing at LOGIS.

František Beneš, IT analyst at ŽĎAS, evaluates the implementation of the new planning system “During the innovation works, we managed to capitalize on our long-term experience with operating the original APS system as well as the fact that the data structures of LOGIS Production Planner are built in a way that is similar to the original solution. Even though it was not a one-to-one migration, this allowed us to quickly get oriented and prepare for the new solution largely on our own, and even without a massive workload on the part of the involved specialists at ŽĎAS.”

The new planning system enables ŽĎAS to prepare production plans that are more advantageous in terms of operational efficiency and customer satisfaction than those prepared in the previous system. From a functional point of view, the new system of ŽĎAS offers, for example, better coherence of individual iterations of production plans or the possibility to configure logic for interactive balancing of production resources. ŽĎAS has also taken advantage of the extensive customization possibilities of the planning system and has modified the data structures and information available on the individual screens to make working with the APS system even more efficient.

“Healthily developing companies understand that without constant pressure to improve customer satisfaction and their own operational efficiency, future success in increasingly demanding markets is hard to imagine,” adds Mr. Havlík. “I am glad that we have succeeded in increasing the value that the enterprise planning system brings to ŽĎAS as well.”

“I would also like to acknowledge the professionalism of the support provided by LOGIS,” says Mr. Beneš. “LOGIS Production Planner has proven to be an advanced next-generation solution compared to the original solution, and the experts at LOGIS have demonstrated a high level of industry awareness and professionalism.”

About ZDAS

ŽĎAS is a Czech manufacturer focused on forming machines, equipment for free forging, scrap processing equipment, hydraulic presses, equipment for processing of rolled products, equipment for material straightening, inspection and straightening lines for bar processing and piece deliveries for rolling mills. The company also specializes in production of castings from 200 to 50.000 kg, forgings from 20 to 9000 kg, ingots from 500 to 20.000 kg and models or press tools mainly from the automotive industry.

ŽĎAS is a traditional Czech manufacturer with a name all over the world. The plant in Ždár nad Sázavou in Czech Republic employs about 1.500 people with a turnover of about CZK 2.5 billion.

About LOGIS

LOGIS is a provider of business services and a producer of Advanced Planning & Scheduling (APS) and Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) software. The services and software of LOGIS enable its customers to achieve tangible improvements of operational efficiency and customer delivery performance. LOGIS has implemented approximately 100 planning systems around the world in the last quarter of century for customers in metals industry and discrete manufacturing (machinery, automotive, etc.). Its customers range from relatively small local producers to extremely complex, large-scale manufacturing enterprises with demanding planning environments.

LOGIS to Discontinue Business in Russia

March 9, 2022

LOGIS stands with the people of Ukraine and the governments, companies and individuals around the world calling for the immediate end to the unlawful and horrific attack on the people of Ukraine and their freedom. Therefore, LOGIS is discontinuing its business in Russia. We thank our colleagues in Russia for their dedication and service to LOGIS over the years.

About LOGIS

LOGIS is a provider of business services and a producer of Advanced Planning & Scheduling (APS) and Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) software. The services and software of LOGIS enable its customers to achieve tangible improvements of operational efficiency and customer delivery performance. LOGIS has implemented approximately 100 planning systems around the world in the last quarter of century for customers in metals industry and discrete manufacturing (machinery, automotive, etc.). Its customers range from relatively small local producers to extremely complex, large-scale manufacturing enterprises with demanding planning environments.

LOGIS Production Planner enabling JFE Steel to improve due date performance and operational efficiency

JFE Steel Corporation (www.jfe-steel.co.jp) has deployed a new planning system for production load verification of its shaped steel operation in Kurashiki. The purpose of the new system is a further improvement of due date performance and reliability of supplies, taking place in parallel with an efficiency increase of the order fulfillment process.

Tokyo, Japan, February 23, 2022

Delivering on its mission to be a fast and reliable supplier, JFE Steel has decided to deploy a new advanced planning system (APS) to improve the efficiency of its order fulfillment process of long products production at the Kurashiki works.

In March 2021, JFE Steel has deployed a new planning system into routine operation for production load verification of its shaped steel operation in Kurashiki. The newly implemented system has the ability to predict the load on refining processes and yard capacities and generates a ready-to-ship plan immediately after a change to the rolling plans occurs.

Thanks to introducing the new planning system, JFE Steel has improved its due date management accuracy thanks to achieving a higher reliability of ready-to-ship predictions and achieved a labor productivity improvement by making production planning operation significantly more efficient — the required time on some of the operations was reduced by as much as 90% compared to the case when these operations were done manually. In addition, the new planning system contributes to operational efficiency of internal logistics and vessel arrangement.

LOGIS Production Planner is the basis of the new planning system: a software developed by the LOGIS company (logis.net) primarily for use in demanding planning environments which, beside other things, require a high degree of customizability of the software tools. The metals industry is a typical demanding planning environment. Using the advanced features of this software, JFE Steel has developed its own functions and incorporated them into its new planning system and deployed the system into JFE’s private cloud, which also enabled it to minimize the development period.

JFE Systems has also expressed its commitment to keep further improving its productivity using advanced planning technologies to optimize operational conditions and an intention to proceed with rollouts of the system to other areas.

The implementation project of the new planning system took place in 2020. The supplies to JFE Steel were executed in cooperation between JFE Systems and LOGIS. The initial plan of the implementation expected several days of joined work of the experts of both JFE and LOGIS on site at Kurashiki each month during the project. However, this approach had to be reevaluated after Covid struck in spring 2020. All cooperative activities then took place fully over distance over the internet with many contributors working from home. Even despite that, all planned project results were achieved, and the project was thus finished successfully, with almost no delay to the original plan. The implementation teams proven a high degree of professionalism and a very good ability to cooperate even in difficult conditions.

“We’re pleased that our software technologies and expert services were again successfully utilized at JFE Steel. We have met experienced professionals both at JFE Steel and at its service organization JFE Systems, who have high demands on their suppliers, but are also a joy to work with,” says Tomas Vojtik, Executive Director of LOGIS.

About JFE Steel Corporation

JFE Steel is a steelmaker engaged in the total steel-making process, taking iron ore raw material and turning it into final products. JFE Steel satisfies customers by producing steel under a corporate philosophy of “contributing to society with the world’s most innovative technology.” The company also contributes to environmental protection by developing reduced-impact ironmaking processes and high-performance steel materials.

About LOGIS

LOGIS is a provider of business services and a producer of Advanced Planning & Scheduling (APS) and Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) software. The services and software of LOGIS enable its customers to achieve tangible improvements of operational efficiency and customer delivery performance. LOGIS has implemented approximately 100 planning systems around the world in the last quarter of century for customers in metals industry and discrete manufacturing (machinery, automotive, etc.). Its customers range from relatively small local producers to extremely complex, large-scale manufacturing enterprises with demanding planning environments.

LOGIS Master Planner improves efficiency of the Sales & Operations Planning process at TimkenSteel

TimkenSteel Corporation (www.timkensteel.com), a leader in high-quality specialty steel, manufactured components, and supply chain solutions is enjoying the benefits resulting from an innovation of its Sales & Operations Planning system. The system has been based on the LOGIS Master Planner planning software from the LOGIS company (logis.net).

November 11, 2021

TimkenSteel Corporation carried out an innovative redesign of its Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) system in 2019, the final stage of a major transformation of their planning system. The new S&OP process is supported by the LOGIS Master Planner planning software, a product of the LOGIS company. This builds upon previous deployments of a state-of-the-art Production Planning and Scheduling system, also based on the suite of cutting-edge planning tools from LOGIS, addressing the mid-term and short-term horizon.

Mr. Marcin Binczyk, Vice President of Supply Chain at TimkenSteel, states, “Based on our experience with production usage of LOGIS Master Planner, I can say that the advantages it provides to us in these challenging times filled with change are clearly visible and very valuable. From the business perspective, LOGIS Master Planner strengthens our ability to proactively respond to the changing outlooks in our markets. Thanks to being able to quickly find a way to satisfy the forecasted demand in the most efficient manner, we’re now able to apply the needed measures in time. Put simply, we’re able to make much better use of the changing market situation than ever before.”

Ms. Stacy Adamski, Sr. Manager – SIOP, Inventory & Master Planning at TimkenSteel, affirms that, “LOGIS Master Planner is enabling us to efficiently respond to what’s ahead. In LOGIS Master Planner, we’re confronting the forecast with our production constraints and with possible ways of producing demanded products. It allows us to evaluate what usage of our production capacities within our constraints is going to allow us to achieve the best results. Working with the tool is comfortable and fast. Thanks to that, we now can also focus on alternative solution variants and compare them against each other. The high speed of processing the plan also allows us to respond quickly and adequately to forecast corrections or to deviations of the real orders coming in from the forecasts.”

“For example,” continues Ms. Adamski. “The biggest decision this year regarding utilization of our resources was the decision to idle one of our melt assets in Canton, Ohio. You just can’t decide like that blindfolded. It would be very risky without being backed by a high-quality analysis. Thanks to the analysis we did, we knew very well what was ahead and what benefits it would bring. Our expectations were fulfilled to the letter. We have thus proven that in the interest of our efficiency, we can use the new system to make situational changes in production layout without exposing ourselves to excessive risk.”

Marcin Binczyk concludes, “The success of the new system supporting the Sales & Operations Planning process follows a similarly successful system supporting Production Planning & Scheduling that we deployed into operation several years ago. Despite staffing reductions over the past several years, the planning team continues to achieve impressive results with the planning systems from LOGIS that were beyond our reach in the past.”

Mr. Dalibor Konvicka, Chairman and CEO at LOGIS says, “So to speak, TimkenSteel is a matter of the heart for us. In the early 90s, it was the very first steelmaking company to apply advanced planning, and the very first customer of i2 Technologies, a pioneer in the world of APS. i2 developed the legendary i2 Factory Planner during their first project for this company. When we started the New Generation Planning project at Timken twenty years later, we were lucky to be working with people who were involved in these initial projects with i2. It was an amazing experience, since it was them who told us ‘Guide us, we trust you,’ and that was a big commitment. We put everything we had in it. We’re pleased and proud of what we have achieved together with the people from TimkenSteel.”

About TIMKENSTEEL CORPORATION

TimkenSteel (NYSE: TMST) manufactures high-performance carbon and alloy steel products from recycled scrap metal in Canton, OH, serving demanding applications in mobile, energy and a variety of industrial end markets. The company is a premier U.S. producer of alloy steel bars (up to 16 inches in diameter), seamless mechanical tubing and manufactured components. In the business of making high-quality steel for more than 100 years, TimkenSteel’s proven expertise contributes to the performance of our customers’ products. The company employs approximately 1,900 people and had sales of $831 million in 2020. For more information, please visit us at www.timkensteel.com.

About LOGIS

LOGIS is a provider of business services and a producer of Advanced Planning & Scheduling (APS) and Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) software. The services and software of LOGIS enable its customers to achieve tangible improvements of operational efficiency and customer delivery performance. LOGIS has implemented approximately 100 planning systems around the world in the last quarter of century for customers in metals industry and discrete manufacturing (machinery, automotive, etc.). Its customers range from relatively small local producers to extremely complex, large-scale manufacturing enterprises with demanding planning environments.

SLOVENSKÉ ENERGETICKÉ STROJÁRNE apply APS technologies to manage growth opportunities

The engineering company SLOVENSKÉ ENERGETICKÉ STROJÁRNE a.s. (SES a.s.), member of J&T group, faces considerable opportunities of order volume growth. The precondition for good management of these opportunities however consists in ensurance of higher quality of the management of order execution process. In order to ensure this requirement, advanced planning tools by i2 Technologies will be applied. The implementation partner of the project is the LOGIS Company.

Tlmače, 4/10/2007

SES a.s. with more than two thousand employees belongs to significant global suppliers of boilers for power plants, heat plants and incineration plants. Since 2006 it has been a part of consolidated entity titled J&T. The J&T group is an influential figure in the area of investments in the Czech and Slovak industrial businesses with central focus on power engineering and machinery. Extraordinary boom in the area of power engineering constitutes a good precondition for meeting one of the strategic goals of the company – to become the most important boiler-manufacturing company in Central Europe. Billion contracts concluded this year and last year realized for example in Chile, Brazil or Turkey almost doubled the revenues achieved in 2006 already during the following two years (from 3.6 billion SKK to a level of 7.5 billion. SKK in 2008). This rapid growth of sales brings about not only the radial increase of volume of production in the parent plant in Tlmače, but will also require reopening of the facility in adjacent Želiezovce, where up to 200 people should be gradually able to find employment. Another side-effect of the rapid growth of the company is the substantial increase of the scope of cooperation regarding especially the non-pressure components and also the increase of volume of purchased material. More complicated manufacturing logistics together with the customer requirements for shortening of delivery lead times impose much higher demands for tools used for support of production management and planning. Managing director of the SES a.s. Company and Ing. Martin Paštika, MBA describes the management expectations as follows: “ We could say in a single sentence that the main objective of the i2 Factory Planner tool implementation consists in essential improvement in quality of the production management. We are interested especially in the throughput improvement, as it could become a critical barrier in our way towards radical increase of turnover. Another important parameter we will monitor is the suppliers’ reliability, because this indicator in our field of expertise is extremely accentuated and the failure to meet deadlines has significant effect on the resulting price of delivery. Qualitative improvement in the area of production management should affect also the duration of production lead times and thus the inventory turnover. In terms of our business activities we acquire a tool that will provide us with important information about term possibilities of production for new businesses in link to actual utilization of capacities.” Supplier selection criteria are summarized by Ing. Jiří Paštika, MBA, financial manager of SES a.s.: “As we want to rank among the best world manufacturers in this field of expertise, we want the same also from our suppliers. Therefore our first requirement was to verify the function of the product on global scale – the product of the American company i2 Technologies complies with this condition completely. After all, their customers include companies like General Electric, Caterpillar, Honeywell and many others. Another condition of ours, direct support in the Czech and Slovak Republic, has also been complied with here – the supplier of this project, LOGIS, has been providing it for already ten years. Two reference visits in the businesses in the identical industrial enterprise of similar size and volume of production, which LOGIS, as the only one from the applicants was able to arrange for, in fact decided on the winner of tender proceedings. Furthermore the selected supplier meets the important criterion of acceptable ratio between the price and expected revenues. The approach of the supplier during the entire tender was highly professional.” “Planning functions of classic ERP type business information systems of even the biggest world producers by no means meet the requirements of the SES Company for complex and concurrently flexible system of planning and control of customized production”, as added by Mgr. Jakub Nosek, MBA, Managing Director of Atwave Consulting Company, which was encharged by the SES Company management with the organization of tender for supplier of production control and planning system. “Right in the beginning we also rejected the use of crutches like sophisticated macros in MS Excel, which can be used for management of a simple series production and only with many limits. After a profound analysis we came to a conclusion that the existing corporate information system includes a quality database, which can be used for application of sophisticated planning tool from APS category (Advanced Planning and Scheduling). Therefore we approached the biggest global figures in the area of APS, which operate on the Czech or the Slovak markets including the leader of this category in the Central and Easter European region, the LOGIS Company, supplying tools by i2 Technologies. After the initial presentations of the companies we had a heavy head as all of them were promising an elegant and simple solution. However, already the second round consisting in reference visits has shown a clear picture of the abilities and experience of the individual implementation companies. Except for LOGIS, which offered us two visits in companies with similar production characteristics, all of the applicants had problems to present any functional reference in a company, whose production would, though only partially, correspond to the production of SES, a.s. The validity of selection of the LOGIS company as the supplier of the APS project was also confirmed by prime pre-implementation study. This is how the Atwave Consulting Company managing director recapitulates the tender proceeding. Ing. Tomáš Vojtík, the executive director of LOGIS makes the following remark regarding the tender proceedings: “The entire process of selection was fast and transparent, as well as the contract negotiations. We appreciate the ability of our client to focus on important matters and not to scatter the energy by compiling and evaluating complicated questionnaires focused on detailed functionality of software, questionnaires that make an impression of conscientiousness and respectability in selection, but which often attempt to compare the incomparable and in which the view of those matters decisive for the resulting value of the project is usually lost. Our specialists will be operating intensively in the SES Company for a period of 10 months with the aim to create, after the completion of the project divided in three stages, premises for shortening of production lead time and significant improvement of timing reliability of deliveries. The contract that has just been signed covers also our support in further 18 months after the completion of the implementation project. The consulting in the prearranged extent will thus be focused on the use of the outlined expectations for improvement of the aforesaid output parameters of the SES Company.”

About SLOVENSKÉ ENERGETICKÉ STROJÁRNE

lovenské energetické strojárne, joint stock company (SES a.s.) is an engineering company with more than 55 year history and belongs to significant suppliers of boilers for power plants, heat plants and incineration plants on the global market. SES a.s. manufactures and supplies steam boilers for combustion of coal, oil, gas and biomass and other devices that meet the most demanding requirements for environmental protection with achieving high efficiency and long-term serviceability. The company provides for complex system of services in power engineering: development, designing, production, assembly, start-up, operator training and service.

About LOGIS

LOGIS is a supplier of expertise services and information technologies. The deliveries are executed in the form of projects aiming at improvement of management effectiveness and development of business success at the customers’ businesses. Within the framework of their solutions, LOGIS applies advanced managing and planning methods and procedures, including high-performance information technologies in the field of Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS).

Prestigious honors of project APS in Třinecké železárny

Project „Advanced Planning of Metallurgic Production in TRINECKE ZELEZARNY a.s.“ became, as the only one project of Europe, a Laureate of prestigious THE COMPUTERWORLD HONORS PROGRAM in category “Manufacturing” for the year 2007. General supplier was company IBM. Subdelivery of implementation was realized by company LOGIS that applied, besides the software of i2 Technologies, also its own information technology.

Třinec, 9/7/2007

The Computerworld Honors Program is governed by the Computerworld Information Technology Awards Foundation (a Massachusetts not-for-profit corporation.). Each year, members of the Computerworld Honors Chairmen’s Committee, a group of 100 Chairmen / CEOs from leading global IT companies, submit nominations for organizations they feel demonstrated extraordinary use of information technology in 10 distinct categories of industry-related endeavor. The Chairmen’s Committee identify the organizations whose use of information technology has been especially noteworthy for the originality of its conception, the breadth of its vision and the significance of its benefit to society. On June 4, 2007, the Laureates Class of 2007 were honored in Medal Ceremonies at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington D.C. As the only one project from Europe, the project Advanced planning of metallurgic production in Trinecke zelezarny a.s. became a laureate in category Manufacturing. It was especially appreciated an unprecendented mastering of project objectives with regard to exceptional complexity of the dynamic environment of metal manufacturing. Ing Jiří Cienciala, CEO and Chairman of Board of Třinecké železárny, says: „We highly appreciate the achieved success. The awarded honors is a proof that Třinecké železárny is one of the world leading companies in steel manufacturing management. Now we can use the reached high degree of operational excellence not only for reduction of costs, but as well for the improvement of our customer satisfaction – reduction of delivery dates, further improvement of due delivery performance and better flexibility of demand response“.

About TŘINECKÉ ŽELEZÁRNY

Třinecké železárny, company tradition since 1839, is an integrated steelmaking company producing long rolled products. With more than 5520 employees is the largest producer of long rolled products in the Czech Republic and is part of leaders’ producers in Europe. Production portfolio comprises wire rod, railway rails, special bars, rebars, wide steel, seamless tubes and various profiles. A year production volume is 2,4 mil. ton, which presents approximately 31 billions CZK. TŘINECKÉ ŽELEZÁRNY and logo TŘINECKÉ ŽELEZÁRNY are registered trade marks of the company TŘINECKÉ ŽELEZÁRNY, a.s.

About LOGIS

LOGIS is a supplier of expertise services and information technologies. The deliveries are executed in the form of projects aiming at improvement of management effectiveness and development of business success at the customers’ businesses. Within the framework of their solutions, LOGIS applies advanced managing and planning methods and procedures, including high-performance information technologies in the field of Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS).

The project of APS implementation in Třinecké železárny honored as IT Project 2006

The project of implementation of advanced planning and scheduling of metallurgical production in the company TŘINECKÉ ŽELEZÁRNY realized by LOGIS was honored as IT Project of year 2006.

Frenštát pod Radhoštěm, 5/3/2007

Every year, CACIO – Czech Association of IT managers, group of the top IT leaders in information technology, seeks, judges and expertly appreciates the best IT projects realized in Czech Republic. This year, in whole 22 projects participated in the contest. The evaluation committee recommended eight of them to the second round of this national competition. The final competition results were announced on 27th of February 2007 during a dancing social gatherings „Taneční polepšovna CACIO“ in exclusive premises of Žofín Palace, Prague. As the winner in category IT project for the year 2006 was elected The project of APS implementation for metallurgical production in the company TŘINECKÉ ŽELEZÁRNY. This project, realized by company LOGIS, took 18 months. During this time were implemented the following functional systems: Advanced planning of metallurgical production for steel plants, rolling mills, finishing and expedition, Allocation of available material and semi-finished material in the whole production process and Detail scheduling for the steel plant. Above mentioned modules and the current ERP system (SAP) have been completely integrated. Besides the above mentioned award, the project was nominated to the world competition „The Computerworld Honours Program“. The nomination abstract declares that the achievements are really unique across the Europe. The LOGIS hereby thanks to the whole team of Třinecké železárny for an excellent cooperation in the realization of the project. Without such an exceptional effort the project would not be successfully realized. Acknowledgments belong as well to LOGIS partners – i2 Technologies and IBM.

About TŘINECKÉ ŽELEZÁRNY

Třinecké železárny, company tradition since 1839, is an integrated steelmaking company producing long rolled products. With more than 5520 employees is the largest producer of long rolled products in the Czech Republic and is part of leaders’ producers in Europe. Production portfolio comprises wire rod, railway rails, special bars, rebars, wide steel, seamless tubes and various profiles. A year production volume is 2,4 mil. ton, which presents approximately 31 billions CZK. TŘINECKÉ ŽELEZÁRNY and logo TŘINECKÉ ŽELEZÁRNY are registered trade marks of the company TŘINECKÉ ŽELEZÁRNY, a.s.

About LOGIS

LOGIS is a supplier of expertise services and information technologies. The deliveries are executed in the form of projects aiming at improvement of management effectiveness and development of business success at the customers’ businesses. Within the framework of their solutions, LOGIS applies advanced managing and planning methods and procedures, including high-performance information technologies in the field of Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS).

WALTER ENGINES is tuning execution of the process of fulfilling orders with LOGIS

The WALTER ENGINES company, a traditional manufacturer of aircraft engines, has launched a project with the objective of increasing the reliability of deliveries and increasing production flow. This purpose will be fulfilled by means of a qualitative change in the process of planning and managing production using the i2 Factory planner advanced planning system from i2 Technologies. The partner during the realization of this project is the LOGIS company.

Prague, 21/4/2006

The WALTER ENGINES company is a traditional manufacturer of aircraft engines and their components. Its clients include Rolls-Royce, SNECMA and Turboméca. In the field of the aviation industry in which WALTER ENGINES operates, demands for quality, delivery reliability, reducing deadlines for delivery and overall flexibility of reactions to changing conditions, are increasing continuously. This fact has led the management of WALTER ENGINES to decide on a fundamental change in the process of planning and management. In connection with this Václav Havlan, the financial director of WALTER ENGINES, says, “Our company has undergone a number of changes in recent years, with one objective – reinforcing our own competitive abilities. We are one of the world leaders with regard to the quality of our production. We will also learn how to be a faster, more reliable and flexible supplier; this will open the door to further growth. We now know what activities we will be able to develop and this does not concern an intention of growth expressed simply in percentage units. From this, we derive the significance of our project, this also determined our approach to the selection of a supplier and solution. The i2 Factory Planner from i2 Technologies is certainly an excellent product, but the experience and abilities of experts from LOGIS in the sphere of advanced planning truly have no competition here. These abilities don’t end with knowledge of the APS system; indeed we consider excellent knowledge of their own product a matter of course. We particularly appreciate how LOGIS manages to combine the company targets of its clients with the services and technologies that it provides and the consummate ease with which it orientates itself in specific company situations. We devoted more time to the performance of a selection procedure than we originally intended. However, we managed to use the time well and some of our ideas had time to mature. For example, our original idea that the most suitable supplier of an APS system would be the one who is our ERP supplier, came to nothing. Because the chief value lies not so much in the product but in the ability of your supplier to achieve the best result.” Production at WALTER ENGINES is divided into three areas: manufacture of aircraft engines, general repairs of aircraft engines and manufacture of components for the aviation industry. A great number of demands for manufacture and assembly of components, deliveries of materials from sub-contractors or components from cooperating companies, continuously arise in all these areas. All inputs must then be prepared at the correct time for assembly or shipping. But the matter doesn’t end with managing the coordination of production activities. Production is only part of the logistics chain. The activities of purchase and sales are directly connected to production. In all these areas small and larger surprises continuously occur: the client changes the requirements, the sub-delivery from the supplier is available at a different time than we originally assumed, or a problem occurs in production. Even though the situation changes constantly, the speed and reliability of deliveries remains one of the primary customer requirements. In WALTER ENGINES much better management of these situations than previously is the priority. The objective is to react to each change in situation by quickly finding the best solution, which is expressed by an updated plan. A plan that will be executed quickly, a plan that will enable us to continuously manage unexpected circumstances and to make the most of the situation. “Of course we plan production in the Walter factory, even today and without APS,” says Petr Kocián, manager of logistics at WALTER ENGINES, continuing, “To keep up with the requirements of our clients, we have been using planning functions based on the traditional concept of MRPII for a number of years and we have gradually perfected these with our own upgrades, such as output groups, programs in Excel, etc. However, while using these we encounter problems more and more frequently with the preciseness of the plan, the ability to react quickly to changes or the fact that the plan is very time consuming to maintain. We were frequently disappointed when we found a solution after much hard work and it was then shown that we had caused a much greater problem in another area. Problems that were caused, in the interests of fulfilling our obligations, by the need for dispatch or, if you like urgent management, consisting frequently of extinguishing a fire or in shooting from the hip. Only the minimum of time and energy remain for any other systematic improvement of our output, for example reducing delivery deadlines, greater flexibility of reactions to the customers’ demands or better coordination of deliveries. Consequently, we decided on a fundamental step – a change in the process of planning production using instruments for advanced production planning. We know that this change won’t be easy, from the technical aspect and the human aspect. We’ll be changing not only traditional work procedures and habits, but we’ll also show our cards with information that we need for management, but which is difficult to acquire today, to people.” The project team has a demanding task before it – to prepare technical conditions, train people and realize a change in the planning process within the whole sales–production–purchase chain within six months. “In spite of the fact that today WALTER ENGINES is markedly more advanced than most companies using traditional ERP systems in its ability to manage production, we’re convinced that the prepared change will require significant dedication from all members of the team,” commented Vladimír Seibert, executive director of the LOGIS company. “Over the course of time we’ve become closely acquainted with the people from WALTER ENGINES. We’ve encountered the management here, which understands that a change is something that will provide the company with the opportunity for further development, which does not see a risk to its own positions in the change and particularly, which is capable of timing and realizing the change correctly. In my opinion, this standpoint is a very good condition for the success of the project that has just been launched. A project that LOGIS, the same as WALTER ENGINES, approaches with maximum responsibility and dedication.”

About LOGIS

LOGIS is a supplier of expertise services and information technologies. The deliveries are executed in the form of projects aiming at improvement of management effectiveness and development of business success at the customers’ businesses. Within the framework of their solutions, LOGIS applies advanced managing and planning methods and procedures, including high-performance information technologies in the field of Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS).

ŽĎAS will be using an advanced production planning and scheduling system from IBM, LOGIS and i2 Technologies

At the beginning of this year the project for the implementation of an advanced production planning and scheduling system commenced in the engineering–metallurgical complex of ŽĎAS, a.s., with registered office in Žďár nad Sázavou. IBM Czech Republic and its alliance partner, LOGIS are the suppliers of this project. The implemented product is the i2 Factory planner from i2 Technologies. The objective of the project is in particular to improve the performance of production and logistics parameters, which includes not only reduction of the continuous time necessary for production and increasing the reliability of fulfilment of the production plan, but also reduction of the volume of stores of incomplete production and materials. In addition to this the improvement in deliveries to the customer and in the economic parameters of production, such as evaluation of the production plan and the planned business cases, will also be manifested positively.

Žďár nad Sázavou, 5/4/2006

Qualitative improvement of the production planning and management process is the purpose of the contract that was signed with ŽĎAS, a.s. (ŽĎAS) following thorough preparation at the end of last year. The suppliers of the project, with the working title of the “APS Project” are IBM Czech Republic and LOGIS, which operate on the Czech market in the sphere of APS/SCM as alliance partners. The i2 Factory planner product from i2 Technologies is the implemented product. “ŽĎAS has been profiling itself as a customer-orientated company for some time now,” said managing director Ing. Miroslav Šabart, continuing, “In today’s highly competitive environment this is a condition for success. Even though we’ve been achieving significant improvements in this field in recent years, which apart from anything else have also been reflected positively in our economic management results, reserves still exist. One of the areas where we see opportunities for improvement is better coordination throughout the entire supplier-customer chain, starting with purchase and ending with sales. This is why we’ve decided on a project of advanced production planning (APS Project). We’ve chosen IBM and LOGIS, who offered a state-of-the-art solution tested in many projects abroad and at home, as partners for its realization.” According to Ing. Vladko Šlezinger, Industry leader, IBM Business Consulting Services, by combining the global strength and expertise of IBM in the sphere of SCM and implementation of information systems with state-of-the-art technologies from i2 Technologies and the abilities of LOGIS in successfully realizing APS/SCM projects, ŽĎAS will gain the opportunity to adopt the best business procedures (so-called best practices), know-how and advanced information technology available in the Central European locality. Thanks to this, it will be capable of reacting to changes in the situation more sensitively by quickly finding the optimal solution and will learn to achieve higher speeds, reliability and flexibility with reduced costs. “A healthily developing company is aware that without continuous pressure on the improvement of customer services and its own operating perfection, future success on ever more demanding markets is hard to imagine,” said Ing. Vladimír Seibert, executive director of LOGIS. He added, “In this project we have demanding targets before us, such as increasing the reliability of the fulfilment of plans, reducing the continuous time necessary for production or reducing the volume of stores. To achieve these targets it’s essential that we build a realization team that will be able to manage not only the technical aspect of implementation of the APS system, but also – in the first place – the management of changes connected to the new company planning process. For this reason, we released specialists to the project team, who have experience from successful projects in a number of engineering companies here and abroad.” Ing. Igor Kliment, assistant to the production director and coordinator of the APS project on the part of ŽĎAS, adds, “We really devoted a lot of attention to the preparation of the project team on our part. Because the project will affect a number of activities, which have been going on in our company without change for many years, we had to take into account not only the expertise of the individual members but also their ability to accept and enforce the change, while putting together the team. I believe that we’ve managed to put together the team so that it will truly fulfil the demanding tasks provided by the project.” Thorough preparation preceded the launch of the project. A number of meetings took place at the level of specialists on both sides, the objective of which was to evaluate the suitability of the proposed solution and to assess the consequences of introducing it in the conditions of the ŽĎAS company. In connection with this, Ing. Libor Šlechta, project supervisor of IBM, says, “From the very beginning ŽĎAS has approached the project very responsibly. We soon agreed that the APS project was not primarily an information project, but that by its scope and the complexity of the connected changes it passes through all the decisive divisions of the company. Thanks to this, key users – representatives of the specialist division – entered the game and first acquainted themselves with the experience from application of the proposed solution in similar manufacturing companies and then, together with the supplier’s specialists, they worked up a proposal for the process of realization of a business case using APS and evaluated its effects. Only then did we start further meetings, which concluded with the signing of the contract. The responsible approach that ŽĎAS took within the scope of preparation of the project guarantees good cooperation during its realization.” The project in ŽĎAS is divided into two independent phases. The first is focused on the sphere of engineering production. In the second phase, expansion of APS functionality into the metallurgical production section will occur. “A long-term Unification project is taking place in our company in the IT division, the objective of which includes the technological and functional renewal of our information system. APS is becoming one of the key components integrated into the ŽĎAS company information system. Coordination with the Unification project has influenced the definition of the extent of the individual APS project phases and its overall period of duration. I believe that within the scope of the APS project, together with our partners, we’ll manage to establish not only a system on a high technological level, but also an instrument with which we will more effectively use the data riches stored in our company information system to the benefit of our company,” said Ing. Pavel Kantor, manager of the informatics department of ŽĎAS.

About ŽĎAS

ŽĎAS, a.s. is involved in the manufacture of rolling mill equipment, shaping machinery and instruments, hydraulic elements, reconstruction and modernisation of machinery and supplies of ingots, castings and freely forged pieces. The most important customers of ŽĎAS include VOLKSWAGEN, VOEST ALPINE, Škoda Auto, Třínecke železárny, HAYES LEMMERZ AUTOKOLA and many other domestic and foreign clients. The company’s mission is to manufacture and supply products and semi-finished products of a high utility value, in the required quality and to provide the corresponding services and to adhere to the corresponding safety and environmental regulations.

About LOGIS

LOGIS is a supplier of expertise services and information technologies. The deliveries are executed in the form of projects aiming at improvement of management effectiveness and development of business success at the customers’ businesses. Within the framework of their solutions, LOGIS applies advanced managing and planning methods and procedures, including high-performance information technologies in the field of Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS).

VOP-026 Šternberk, s.p. implements a system of advanced planning

VOP-026 Šternberk, s.p., a leading Czech military repair plant have concluded the Agreement on Supply and Implementation of system i2 Factory Planner for advanced planning of production with the LOGIS company.

Šternberk, 22/12/2005

VOP-026 Šternberk, s.p. (VOP-026), a leading Czech military repair plant have concluded the Agreement on Supply and Implementation of system for advanced planning of production (APS) with the LOGIS company. During the eight-month project, the i2 Factory Planner system from i2 Technologies will be implemented. Šternberk VOP-026, a traditional service centre of military armoured wheeled vehicles was one of the few Czech military repair plants that was able to cope with the radical change of the situation in the Czech army related to significant reduction of the army vehicle fleet. The decline in the volume of military orders was successfully compensated in the past by obtaining orders from the civil sector. At present, the main customers include producers of construction machinery – FERMEC (Great Britain) and SCHAEFF (Germany) – members of the TEREX Corporation supranational group. The performance of orders from the civil sector is ensured by an independent engineering division, for which the system of advanced planning of production i2 Factory Planner is primarily used. Ing. Martin Smolka, Financial Manager of VOP-026, comments on the decision to implement the system of advanced planning: “The fact that VOP-026 is a state enterprise does not limit our attempt to succeed in the present highly competitive environment. The need to be a faster and more reliable partner for our clients and, on the other hand, the low transparency of the present situation in production, the ever-changing requirements of clients and the inability to make new plans while revealing the impacts of the new plans on all orders, made us think of a radical change of the planning system and production management in the engineering division of the company.” Ing. Antonín Kratochvíl, Deputy Director of the Company describes the course of the bidding procedure: “In the first round of the bidding procedure we were assessing fifteen bids, six bidders were allowed to proceed to the second round, after presentations and reference visits we selected the two favourites, whose task was to prepare a pre-implementation study and demonstrate their readiness to manage the whole project in the proper manner. To tell the truth, it was only the final round of the bidding procedure that persuaded us that it was LOGIS that would provide the best chances for success. At the beginning we knew that LOGIS was a leader in the field, but we considered their solution to be excess luxury. It was the same as purchasing company cars from Rolls-Royce, so why not act in a similar way in the selection of the supplier for the APS project? At first it looked like most of the bids were similar, so we preferred the seemingly ‘golden mean’. “Only in the other phases of the bidding procedure, when we went deeper into the fundaments of the bids, did we discover that in this case the similarity to cars is incorrect. Even if you buy a car of the highest class, it will take you to your destination with similar reliability to a medium-class car, for which you pay much less money. Both cars will be safe, they will have everything important for the car to work properly. There is no such analogy for the APS systems. We came to the conclusion that in close inspection you can find out that many of the offered APS promise low consumption and high performance, but in fact they lack some important things – sometimes a steering wheel, sometimes even the motor. “And if I stick to this car analogy, in the world of cars you can expect that in almost all driving schools they will teach you well how to drive. However, it’s not that simple with the APS systems. This is not only because top-quality knowledge of the APS system can be obtained from real experts, but also because APS is operated in a much more complicated environment than a road network. In addition to a very good knowledge of APS, experts also have to be capable of very good orientation in the company environment. However, this can become obvious only within the pre-implementation study. The study confirmed that LOGIS’ specialists are capable of the proper application of experience from many successful projects in engineering companies. In addition, we were surprised by their knowledge of the specific terminology of the repair field because we are consider extension of the utilization of APS into the division of Military Production in the next round. “VOP-026 is our first client from a state enterprise. I must confess that it was a nice surprise for us to see how professional the company’s approach was. This is not only about a thoroughly organized bidding procedure, consistent compliance with all the agreed terms and exemplary cooperation in preparation of the pre-implementation study – but also clear development objectives of the company, the emphasis on improvement of the main company process, concentration on increasing the speed and reliability of orders. This is the most important reason why we think there are great prerequisites for a good result of the whole project.” said the executive manager of the LOGIS company, Ing. Vladimír Seibert, adding: “It’s obvious that there’s a lot to do in the near future. Work connected to many significant and often radical changes in the company. We’re looking forward to it and we’re glad that we will be able to contribute to the development of such an interesting company as VOP-026 in Šternberk”.

About VOP-026 Šternberk, s.p.

The history of the company dates back to 1951 when, in a newly built production hall, the repairs of surface military technology for the needs of the Czechoslovak army were initiated. Since the 1960s, the company has specialized in repairs of wheel and crawler armoured personnel carriers and combat infantry vehicles; at the beginning of the new century it also took over repairs of engineer technology. The scope of repairs ranges from general repairs to on-the-spot repairs, including the provision of service to international missions. In addition to repairs, various technologies were modernized, or rebuilt to meet the needs of the army. In this way, many research, signal, headquarters and purpose vehicles on crawlers were created. In the past the scope of activity of the company was significantly extended with an organization measure of the establisher, by including three military technical institutes in Brno, Slavičín and Vyškov, A significant part of the capacities is now intended particularly for solving research and development tasks in the area of surface technology, research and observation systems, arms systems, ammunition, military chemistry, electronic research devices and material engineering. This includes creation of the operation and training documentation, teaching aids and equipment. In these areas, the company provides support to the Czech Army and to other clients, outputs of research and development capacities are often realized in the production plant of the company. In this area, the company is involved in international cooperation with research capacities of other countries and expert activity within NATO and EDA. A significant share in the turnover is occupied by the engineering production, where the company established a position as a reliable supplier of processed weldments for foreign clients. The company capacities were also extended in the area of testing, which enables continuous measurement, trials and testing of the research, development and production outputs in order to provide the clients with services and production in the adequate quality. Many company testing laboratories are accredited; the company holds a certificate of compliance of the quality management system with European standards. From a repair shop of salvage technology, the plant has been transformed to a company that is capable of satisfying clients’ needs using state-of-the-art technologies from research to servicing, to a company with highly qualified personnel with a positive attitude toward clients and their needs.

About LOGIS

LOGIS is a supplier of expertise services and information technologies. The deliveries are executed in the form of projects aiming at improvement of management effectiveness and development of business success at the customers’ businesses. Within the framework of their solutions, LOGIS applies advanced managing and planning methods and procedures, including high-performance information technologies in the field of Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS).

TŘINECKÉ ŽELEZÁRNY Implement Advanced Planning and Scheduling System

Co-operating with IBM Czech Republic and LOGIS, TŘINECKÉ ŽELEZÁRNY, a.s. (TŽ) are busy pursuing a project involving supplies and implementation of advanced production planning and scheduling. Included in the project are advanced planning and scheduling technologies designed by i2 Technologies Inc. (i2) for metallurgical production. The project is scheduled to be completed by mid-2006 and it seeks to increase the competitiveness and profitability of TŽ.

1/6/2005

What is the goal of the project

Improving comprehensive customer service by securing high operational excellence The sponsor of the project on behalf of TŘINECKÉ ŽELEZÁRNY is Ing. Jan Lasota, Director for Production and Commerce, who had the following to say about the project: “We’re experiencing ever-growing pressure applied to steelmaking companies to provide their customers with high-quality products at still greater promptness, reliability and flexibility. What was enough yesterday, is on the verge of being too little today and will not suffice tomorrow. A great deal has been done in the department of quality enhancement and we have a lot to be proud of. Now, we’ve decided to concentrate more intensively on how the needs of our clients may be accommodated by providing them with attractive and reliable delivery dates. And it’s here that the company still leaves a lot to be desired. We can hardly expect to be prompt and reliable with regard to our customers without making promptitude and reliability the essential attributes upon which the corporate processes within the company rest. And what we must not forget in so doing is that improvement in this domain must be achieved with high efficiency—in other words, high speed, reliability and flexibility must not cost us ‘all the funds’. We must learn to achieve it at low costs. We know this is a formidably difficult task that, in a way, reminds me of the attempt of major automotive companies to develop engines displaying the highest possible power with the lowest possible consumption. Similarly, we have to fine tune our company-wide process of order fulfilment in a manner as to ensure that it yields high performance while keeping costs low. This is the goal of the project we’re about to launch. When implementing the project we won’t dispense with highly efficient management methods. Advanced planning methods will have a key role to play as well as the ability on our part to employ the technologies in the management system introduced at our plant. How much importance we ascribe to the project is clearly shown by our choice of the best available technologies and suppliers. We believe that the advanced planning project is an important step that will lead to further improvements in the competitiveness of our company.

What the project seeks to improve

Increasing management efficiency through high-quality planning Order performance is a rather complex and complicated process at our plant. A number of time-dependent effects and limitations factor in it. The existing management tools did not make it possible for us to reflect these limitations to the necessary extent when making decisions on what operations should be done at the individual workstations and when. Our existing tools did not possess the capacity to evaluate the state of affairs in a short time and determine the optimal procedure translated into a plan defining who shall do what and when. We were often forced to make decisions without having the opportunity to provide support for the decisions in the form of comprehensive and amply detailed evaluation of all factors, and, similarly, we were not always able to foresee the effects that the decision would have upon each of the links in the logistics chain. The solution will allow us to reveal pending threats in time and adopt measures to eliminate them. We’re convinced that a more precise and sensitive management resting upon optimised plans and schedules will help us to yield favourable conditions to achieve better operational results in performing our orders. As a result, we will be able to perform in a faster, more reliable manner while retaining a better overview of the process than is the case now.”

What are the initial conditions?

Tried and true solutions to yield top results “The attempt to improve the quality of production planning in our company is nowhere near to being new,” says Ing. Bohuslav Sikora, Manager of Planning Department, who was entrusted with the role of project co-ordinator. ”We’ve been dealing with APS for four years, since we launched our first project designed to improve production planning by introducing APS technologies. Although it was realised later that the implemented solution didn’t address our requirements, we were able to benefit from the project works. We arrived at a better understanding of our needs and got a better grasp of the APS issues. And this translated well into the tender we organised last year. One of the key parameters that served us in gauging the applicants was the rate of success they enjoyed while implementing projects of comparable magnitude in plants of comparable size. We visited the companies that implemented the projects with the applicants and strove to find out to what extent the project supported the monitored processes as well as the course that the projects took. The tender took a year to complete and culminated in signing a contract with IBM who, co-operating with LOGIS, was prepared to offer solutions that addressed our demanding requirements in terms of functionality, and worked well with metallurgical plants operating a similar production pattern. We feel that the time has come and assume that we’re heading into the project with an ace up our sleeve: our team is well prepared, the project is being taken care of by successful and strong suppliers and we are about to implement some top information technologies that have already performed well in our field of business.

What capabilities will result from the project?

We have to learn to compile high-quality plans and schedules, which will be precise enough to be advantageously employed in managing our plant. The chief outcomes of the introduction of the advanced planning technologies include:

• ability to create high-quality plans within a short time and employ them as management tools;
• ability to create high-quality steel mill plans and schedules in a short time to be employed as management tool;
• ability to re-plan in a short time and accommodate the effects of the re-planning in an optimal manner.”

Technical considerations of the project

Project scope, technologies employed, time schedule, … The best results can only be achieved if we manage to use the plan to synchronise the activities within the largest possible extent of our internal supply chain. Therefore, we chose a solution that will cover the entire production flow, ranging from steelmaking, all of the rolling mills (based in Třinec and Bohumín) up to rolling mill finishing shop and product handover to the shipping warehouse. The steel mill scheduling model will include the converters, secondary metallurgy, both continuous casting machines, ingot casting facility and the electric steel plant. The scope renders our project rather ambitious. Not all metallurgical plants that have approached the concept of APS technologies eventually managed to implement the solutions with this degree of sophistication. The key project module is the metallurgical production planning and scheduling module — i2 Factory Planner — that will, in conjunction with the free material allocation module — i2 Material Allocator — provide the much needed functionality for creating the optimised Main Plan and Schedule of Production covering the entire production flow at TŽ. The other field that the project will address involves detailed scheduling of the key TŽ production department– the steel mill. The Caster Scheduler — a detailed scheduling module — will provide the planning and control of steelmaking production and optimised heat sequencing for the continuous casters in co-ordination with the Master Plan. The project is not an experiment, but rather an introduction of a solution that has proven to perform well in steelmaking conditions. This gives us the opportunity to plan the project while maintaining the speedy pace. The planned 12 months of the project will take some hurrying for us, but we’re looking forward to it.”

About TŘINECKÉ ŽELEZÁRNY

Třinecké železárny, company tradition since 1839, is an integrated steelmaking company producing long rolled products. With more than 5520 employees is the largest producer of long rolled products in the Czech Republic and is part of leaders’ producers in Europe. Production portfolio comprises wire rod, railway rails, special bars, rebars, wide steel, seamless tubes and various profiles. A year production volume is 2,4 mil. ton, which presents approximately 31 billions CZK. TŘINECKÉ ŽELEZÁRNY and logo TŘINECKÉ ŽELEZÁRNY are registered trade marks of the company TŘINECKÉ ŽELEZÁRNY, a.s.

About LOGIS

LOGIS is a supplier of expertise services and information technologies. The deliveries are executed in the form of projects aiming at improvement of management effectiveness and development of business success at the customers’ businesses. Within the framework of their solutions, LOGIS applies advanced managing and planning methods and procedures, including high-performance information technologies in the field of Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS).

Increasing Major Company Process Performance at ZVVZ

Co-operating with LOGIS, the South Bohemia based ZVVZ a.s. are implementing a project designed to improve business case process performance. i2 Factory Planner advanced planning and LOGIS Enterprise Manager project planning technologies are employed under the project scheme.

1/5/2005

ZVVZ a.s. is a significant global supplier of air-conditioning and other environmental products and facilities and related services. Under their business cases, the company with approximately 1,050 employees deliver facilities designed and tailor-made to specific customers. This means that joborder and small batch production prevail at the company. The business cases are characterised by pre-production activities and the actual manufacture and assembly of the required components right at the customer sites. Controlling such job orders hence amounts to managing rather complex projects. The Chairman of ZVVZ Managing Board, Ing. Miroslav Knot, adds regarding the project: “The nature of ZVVZ’s business is becoming ever more sophisticated. Customers are no longer willing to be content when the word ‘order’ is linked with the word ‘quality’; they do and will want more. In addition to quality, we have to provide them with more reliability, promptness and flexibility. We are dealing with a business where just these parameters are very difficult to be improved. But all the better, the competitive edge will be that we will gain as soon as we manage to shorten our delivery dates, improve our responsiveness and increase the reliability of our deliveries. Therefore, systematic attention is paid to the issue of improving the quality of our major production processes. What we’re striving to attain is to operate with lesser reserves, both time reserves and reserves between the individual operations, and reserves in stock or capacities, to respond to any change in a rapid and optimal manner, which is a factor in our ability to comply with the business cases. We have to learn to do ‘the right things at the right time’, to operate while retaining better control of the process, to reduce the effects of local decisions and, on the contrary, control the activities in the entire process at the same time. Therefore, the objective we seek to achieve in the company is a certain degree of operational excellence. LOGIS was given the role of our project partner. We make use of their advanced planning technology and know-how and we don’t regret that decision. Although there are a lot of modifications yet to be made, a lot has already been changed. In my opinion, I’m right in saying that we have jointly launched the process of continuous improvement.” As soon as we were preparing the project, we decided to divide it into two stages, the implementation stage and fine-tuning stage. The implementation stage was scheduled to take 12 months and it sought to yield engineering/ organisational conditions for the changes to be introduced, and provide the necessary tools to promote the changes so that they were ready to be directly employed in our plant. Now, once the implementation stage has been brought to an end, we’re in for the fine-tuning stage to polish the processes with of view of enhancing performance parameters such as consistent compliance with production deadlines, stock rotation times or continuous production times,” says Ing. Jiří Lesák, Quality and Control Director, who is in charge of managing the project. “Even before the project was launched, while we were preparing a logic model of the project along with our supplier, we realised that our biggest task would be to provide for the changes in the attitude of the people. For instance, we introduced changes in the manner in which production documentation is drafted – the structure of bills of material and routings must comply with the production logic; otherwise, their applicability in supporting production control would be limited to a great degree. We had to absorb the concept of production planning as a dynamic process, the concept of a business case being a process replete with random effects of various degrees of significance and impacts, a process where accurate figures tend to mingle with inaccurate figures, approximate timing with exact timing, through a process that we nevertheless wanted to submit to precise control. It is just the dynamic nature of the planning process that necessitated organisational measures that also included the foundation of an independent logistics department directly subordinate to the Chief Executive Officer. Last but not least, we had to substantially upgrade the production feedback as one can only control that of which one actually possesses information. The previous practise was to register information on the withdrawal of the products from the shops on paper, with a certain delay and a low degree of precision – therefore, the plant top management were practically denied the chance to interfere with the immediate operative control in any way, and were left with the mere option to assess, ex past facto, how well we had been doing. For this reason, there was no power in the plant that could efficiently and in real time synchronise all the activities associated with order performance, i.e. to provide efficient and effective management with regard to the actual state of affairs. Therefore, we were confronted with the need to create an environment wherein the information could be monitored in an on-line mode, continuously and with a high degree of precision. The above examples clearly show that the changes introduced genuinely applied to all key activities associated with the process of business case performance. The commercial department staff and the designers had to grow accustomed to the necessity to define the deadlines more exactly and monitor them during the pre-production stages. The engineers and technologists had to modify their long-standing habits in creating design and technological documentation. Production and purchasing employees experienced a significant change of job procedures. The foremen, overmen and labourers had to get used to entering data on their undertakings in the ‘computer’ on a daily basis. These were and are huge changes, but in the entire course of introducing them, which admittedly was a painful process at times, we never lost faith in them being a necessary precondition to our successful completion of the project that sought to strengthen our competitiveness,” Ing. Lesák concluded. Because the focal point of the project, right from the beginning, was to improve the specific performance parameters, the latter were subjected to regular monthly measurements, for which Ing. Jan Buriánek, ZVVZ Production Director, and Ing. Tomáš Vojtík, LOGIS Implementation Director were responsible. “In the contract we had defined an accurate metric to be applied when measuring the degree of delivery reliability, stock rotation and continuous production time, and the metric was then complied with throughout the project implementation stages. Similarly, we determined the internal values at the commencement of the project to which we would eventually juxtapose the results achieved. Using the measurements performed, we can objectively conclude that we managed to increase delivery reliability and reduce the production lead time,” says Buriánek. Vojtík had the following to add: “Improving the above parameter necessitated, in addition to other things, that a number of organisational and personal measures had to be taken in order to provide better co-ordination between the production departments and centres. The fact that, at the time being, the contractual values pertaining to the performance parameters, against which we evaluate the project results, are being complied with attests to the positive effects that the introduced changes brought about. It would be unthinkable to introduce such far-reaching changes in any company without the support of the top management. Obviously, the project was approved of by the company’s Board of Directors. The members of the top management were appointed to take roles as members of the project control committee that provides lasting support to the project.” The Chief Executive Officer, Ing. Miroslav Knot, had the following to say about the project: “I’m convinced we set out in the right direction by deciding to launch the development project and that we did a lot of work when implementing it. For instance, the time within which we are capable of deciding on the possible delivery date while taking into account the availability of the key capacities and subdeliveries moved from days to the region of hours. The exactitude and reliability of information on the degree of completion of the projects and the planned completion of the order have increased substantially. These are not only the results of the introduction of the planning software. In my opinion, a high degree of competence, expertise and experience on the part of the supplier’s employees is a key factor in successfully completing projects of this type. Even when the project was in progress, it became clear that LOGIS were capable of providing this, having deployed a team of highly qualified consultants at ZVVZ. If the project as it has been pursued till now had been assessed, I could state that compared to the previous time, we have acquired greater awareness that the activities associated with this development project, hence those activities focused upon improving the process of business case performance, should actually become a permanent part of our work. Therefore, we intend to go on perfecting our ability to plan and control the process of order performance in the future. We will draw upon the existing results of the development project and, along with LOGIS, focus upon better planning and control of the non-production stages (sale, design, construction etc.).”

About LOGIS

LOGIS is a supplier of expertise services and information technologies. The deliveries are executed in the form of projects aiming at improvement of management effectiveness and development of business success at the customers’ businesses. Within the framework of their solutions, LOGIS applies advanced managing and planning methods and procedures, including high-performance information technologies in the field of Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS).

Aluminium Konin – Impexmetal S.A. Implements Advanced Planning Technologies

Aluminium Konin – Impexmetal S.A., the sole Polish Aluminium producer, adopted the intention to implement an Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) system under the scheme of company advancement, intending to make use of i2 Factory Planner solution by the American i2 Technologies. The project shall be taken care of by SPIN, co-operating with their Czech Republic-based partner LOGIS, boasting of extensive experience in APS projects.

01/04/2005

Marek Kacprowicz, Chairman of the Managing Board of Aluminium Konin – Impexmetal S.A. had the following to say on the reasons that led to the project: “The metallurgical sector is in for development t u r m o i l . A n d those who can take the opportunity and offer more than the others, set the pace. Although we’ve arrived at a high quality of production, we see customer requirements becoming ever more stringent in the domain of flexibility, promptness, precision and reliability of deliveries. Therefore, if we intend to boost customer satisfaction, we have to improve control quality in a significant way. To back up this objective, we decided to employ advanced planning technologies.” Advanced planning technologies are capable of backing up changes designed to improve operational efficiency and customer service standards. As shown in a score of examples involving similar projects implemented in a number of metallurgical plants, inventory turnover may be increased substantially (with the increase ranging between 30% and 50%), production lead times may be reduced (by 30% to 40%), due date prerformance may be increased (by 30% to 50%), etc. Although there are many firms declaring to be suppliers of advanced planning technologies, only a small fraction of these can actually turn the promises into solid results. Jan Woźniak, Production and Technology Director and Member of Aluminium Konin – Impexmetal S.A. Managing Board, maintains: “The contract award was preceded by a robust analysis of the bids submitted by both Polish and foreign companies. The top quality of the i2 Planning Technologies was not the only factor in our decision-making; the experience demonstrated and capabilities on the part of the supplier of the present project had a role to play, too. During the upcoming ten months, the APS system will be implemented, as a result of which we will obtain a very powerful tool to support production planning and control. We will be able to produce more efficiently while being able to accommodate our customers’ needs in a better way.” The implemented solution employs the i2 Factory Planner state-of-the-art planning and control tool designed by i2 Technologies with regard to the needs of metallurgical production, which makes it possible to:

• identify pending problems relating to production and order performance in advance;
• optimise capacity utilisation;
• define material purchasing needs in a precise manner;
• respond to situational changes and client requirements;
• determine the possible delivery dates in a rapid and reliable manner;
• provide updates on the course of order performance;
• etc.

Included in the project is the delivery of the application for operational control and withdrawal of finished products that will allow the operators to manage production efficiently in manual or automatic mode. Due to the implemented project, Aluminium Konin – Impexmetal S.A. will be able to plan and control the processes of order reception and performance more effectively, which will ultimately have a favourable effect upon profitability and customer satisfaction. Dalibor Konvička, LOGIS Chief Executive Officer stressed: “Aluminium Konin – Impexmetal S.A. is the first Polish company to employ any of the top planning technologies with a view to enhancing its competitiveness. We’re pleased that our first Polish customer is a company capable of defining their priorities and allocating additional resources with the intention to undertake the project within a short period of time and with maximum certainly. With the progress in the implementation achieved up to this point, it seems the project may be completed by the original deadline, which is an excellent reference for us.” The project was scheduled to take place in four gradual stages, with a total duration of ten months. Each stage consists in undertaking component tasks leading to the commissioning of the defined system functionality with regard to the changes that need to be introduced in the plant processes. There are clearly defined aims for each of the stages and the stages themselves are assessed separately. The project rules are described in detail in LOGIS Project Methodology appended to the Supply Contract and is a document of key importance to the project team. Thanks to the above methodology, which is based upon i2 Technologies Best Practices and is subject to updates with regard to experience collected from previous projects, the results may be achieved within very short times while maintaining minimum risks. “Last month, we concluded the penultimate stage of the project,” says Artur Głodek, Project Manager on behalf of Aluminium Konin¨ – Impexmetal S.A., adding that: ”We headed into the project with a negativity that stemmed from our experience in co-operating with other suppliers who were unable to comply with the agreed time schedule, thus negatively affecting the dates allocated for further projects we were pursuing. Soon, however, it became clear that this project was different both in terms of compliance with the deadlines and in project team readiness and competence. The project went smoothly and the outcomes of the individual stages met our expectations.” The competence of the project team on behalf of the supplier is an all-important factor in the success of advanced planning projects. LOGIS is a long-standing supplier of projects designed to improve corporate competitiveness through projects that seek to improve the quality of planning and control. While present in the market, LOGIS built a strong competence centre that not only implements the actual projects in Central and Eastern European countries, but also promotes projects undertaken by their partners, regardless of the geographical region. Michał Górski, Chairman of SPIN Managing Board said: “Our company has decided to be the first in Poland to invest in a team focusing upon APS/SCM technologies. Now, we’re on the verge of launching the first project of this kind. We can identify the still growing demand in the market for similar technologies. The success we had with the Konin project will show the way to additional similar Poland-based companies. We realise that the high sophistication of the projects requires the full involvement and willingness to co-operate of both the supplier and the customer. We are pleased to be able to rely upon LOGIS, who have been dealing with advanced planning project implementations for more than five years and have a score of highly qualified experts at their disposal.”

About LOGIS

LOGIS is a supplier of expertise services and information technologies. The deliveries are executed in the form of projects aiming at improvement of management effectiveness and development of business success at the customers’ businesses. Within the framework of their solutions, LOGIS applies advanced managing and planning methods and procedures, including high-performance information technologies in the field of Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS).

TOKOZ has completed the implementation of the Advanced Planning System

A major supplier of security mechanisms, furniture fittings and building fittings, components for the automotive industry, company TOKOZ, has completed the project of implementation of the Advanced Planning System (APS) i2 Factory Planner. The information technologies have been supplied and implemented by the company LOGIS.

Žďár nad Sázavou 23/3/2005

Company TOKOZ, a.s. has successfully completed a project, within which the Advanced Planning technologies have been implemented. The information technologies were supplied and implemented by the company LOGIS, the supplier of expert services and information technologies focused on improvement of the quality of management and the competitive ability of companies. The implementation took place within seven months in accordance with the planned schedule. The general manager and vice-chairman of the Board of Directors of the company TOKOZ, Ing. Vladimír Chládek characterizes the purpose of the project as follows: “We are a fully customer-oriented company. Our motto “We deliver what we promise” expresses our ability to reliably, flexibly and quickly respond to our clients’ needs. We want to further develop this ability we have, we want to be even better, and we also want to learn how to secure that the price we pay for the satisfaction of our customers already now was not too high. Such a high price includes unnecessarily high inventory, insufficient overall throughput of our production-logistic chain, not always optimum use of the available resources, and so on. In order to be able to provide the high-standard customer service with maximum efficiency, i.e. with minimum costs, we have to learn how to plan more precisely and to respond with high sensitivity to the changes in any component of the logistic chain. There are many opportunities for improvement in this area. That is why we have invested in the acquisition of an Advanced Planning System, which is at our disposal now, and which will help us increase the throughput of the production, reduce the lead times, improve the stock turn, or in other words: improve the level of our operational excellence. Thanks to this, we will be able to deliver even better what we promise, but with lower related costs.” Ing. Stanislav Havliš, technical and production manager of the company, comments on the course of the project as follows: “Like perhaps most of companies, we also have rich experience with projects involving the implementation of information technologies. I want to express my pleasure that although the project of the APS system implementation was in this respect probably the most complicated one we have ever done, it has worked out best from the point of view of our expectations. LOGIS set a demanding, yet feasible schedule, and provided a highly elaborate and effective project methodology, thanks to which we were able to avoid dead ends and to proceed with much insight. The professionalism of the supplier’s experts and the project discipline were exemplary as well. The project output is not only a functioning Advanced Planning System, but also a quality documentation. In the course of the work, we demanded a lot from each other, and it was a strict imperative for both sides to follow the budget – in spite of that, LOGIS always searched for and often found a way to satisfy some of our additional requirements, while respecting the budget. We often work on common projects with our German partners, but even with them, we usually don’t find projects managed on such a quality basis. Ing. Jaroslav Sýkora, head of the logistics, was appointed the project coordinator and the key user on behalf of the company TOKOZ at the same time. “LOGIS, the supplier of our project, not only has considerable experience in the field of advanced planning, but it also has the top technologies and experts at its disposal, and it achieves very good practical results. I believe that this fact is crucial for the success of the project. I have never participated in anything so demanding and complicated. However, it was a valuable experience, and I am glad that I have had the opportunity to be there. The product i2 Factory Planner has confirmed its reputation of a strong planning tool. Everything important and necessary has been incorporated into the planning model. Already in the course of the implementation, we acquired a much better insight and control of the realized orders. We have used this fact to reduce the total number of delayed deliveries to customers. However, much work is still before us. Now, after the completion of the implementation, we will focus on using the APS system in the best way to continuously improve our capabilities of controlling the routine operation of the company. We must get the system deep under this skin of the processes. We will focus on such activities as increasing the production throughput, reducing the inventory, optimum use of the capacities, but at the same time, improvement of the reliability, flexibility and speed towards our customers.” Ing. Dalibor Konvička, general manager of the company LOGIS, adds: “You would be wrong, if you said that TOKOZ products are not too complex, so the planning of their production cannot be a hard nut to crack, either. To the contrary, we have created a planning model, which definitely does not belong to the simple ones, in this company. In TOKOZ, we met goal-oriented people, exacting in the proper way, but ready to step up a gear at the same time – this is the environment that suits us best. I believe that the implemented planning technologies will bring a high value to our client and will enable the company TOKOZ to use the hidden reserves of its production logistic program in favour of lower costs and higher customer satisfaction.”

About TOKOZ

Company TOKOZ, a.s. is a major supplier of security mechanisms, components for the automotive industry, furniture fittings and building fittings. TOKOZ is a stable and flexible company in terms of economy and business, providing its customers with professional services. Stable production, innovation and sale of standard TOKOZ products enable the company to focus on custom manufacturing and services, and these activates have been continuously growing in the last two years. The company’s growing export reflects its activities on new foreign markets, where TOKOZ cooperates with many well-known producers. TOKOZ is a registered trademark of the company TOKOZ, a.s.

About LOGIS

LOGIS is a supplier of expertise services and information technologies. The deliveries are executed in the form of projects aiming at improvement of management effectiveness and development of business success at the customers’ businesses. Within the framework of their solutions, LOGIS applies advanced managing and planning methods and procedures, including high-performance information technologies in the field of Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS).

APS at Hayes Lemmerz Autokola: Quickly and Efficiently

The company of Hayes Lemmerz Autokola has implemented and uses the i2 Factory Planner APS system. The LOGIS Company was chosen as the project implementer. The project was implemented at a quick pace and has produced very good results such as inventory reduction and improved customer satisfaction.

01/03/2005

The company of Hayes Lemmerz Autokola, a.s., a member of Hayes Lemmerz International, Inc., is a leading car wheel manufacturer and supplier. At the end of 2002, the company of Hayes Lemmerz Autokola decided to implement the i2 Factory Planner system for Advanced Planning and Scheduling. Erich Zipser, the Chairman of the Board of Directors and General Director of Hayes Lemmerz Autokola, comments upon the reasons why the company is implementing the project:”The automobile industry is very demanding and uncompromising. Its suppliers are gradually increasing the demands they lay upon each of the links in the supply chain. Businesses that want to succeed cannot rely merely on their ability to produce products with excellent technical properties and high quality – they must be able to offer more. In the past several years, demands for flexibility, speed, precision and on-time performance, i.e. the level of customer service, have been increasing. A number of customer service parameters are strongly affected by how precisely, smoothly and with what performance the order fulfilment processes are running. Thus, with improved customer service, it is also necessary to improve the operational excellence of the business. These are today´s imperatives. To support the fulfilment thereof, we have decided to apply advanced planning technologies and use them to the benefit of more successful company management.”

• Better understanding of the ability to meet customer demands and identify related issues with greater time in advance and precision
• Improved general visibility through connecting Sales-Production-Purchasing processes
• Improved ability to plan material requirements
• Improved planning of capacity requirements

Also in the next three-month BR2 stage, we managed to achieve our planned objectives – both in timing and results:

• Ability to globally optimise plan
• Prompt response to customer demands
• What-if plan simulation ? plan variants creation
• Financial assessment of plan variants
• Prompt plan updating in response to changing situations

I think we definitely can state that the results achieved meet our expectations.” “Thanks to the advance planning technologies application, the Sales-Production-Purchasing process has become more transparent and consistent´, comments Jiří Adámek, a company Executive Director, and adds: “At the same time, the project strengthened some of our important capacities. For example, avoid potential bottlenecks in production before they occur and take appropriate measures in time, or the ability to plan material requirements with greater precision and with a longer time horizon. It also allowed us to sensitively respond to changing situations. It has reflected favourably in our stock levels – we see here, of course, when measuring in more detail, continuing variations but the long-term stock level has dropped by about 30 percent. Even this result is worth mentioning.”

The final assessment was given by the General Director, Mr.Erich Zipser, again:

“We are glad we have found courage ´to go at it.´ The project results have unambiguously met our expectations. Although it may seem, when looking back, that everything went well and everything was easy, I am aware that a lot of obstacles had to be overcome and many changes had to be implemented during the project. I appreciate the proactive approach of the implementation team, procedures, methodologies and technologies undertaken. We now work more efficiently and with better perspective. We are now able to identify many issues that we faced before – but do so more quickly and in advance, and find solutions for avoiding them. We are able to respond much more quickly and precisely to any change related to the fulfilling orders. Our cooperation with LOGIS helps us develop our abilities and improve. It allows us not only to reduce costs but also strengthen our position as a flexible and reliable link in production chain in the automobile industry.”

About Hayes Lemmerz

ayes Lemmerz International, Inc. is one of the leading global suppliers of automotive and commercial wheels for on-road transport, brakes, power trains, suspension and other relieved components. The company has over 40 plants, and 3 joint ventures with approximately 11, 000 employees. Hayes Lemmerz Autokola, a.s. is a member of Hayes Lemmerz International, Wheels Group. It is a manufacturer of steel wheels for passenger cars. It is a significant supplier of VW, Ford and OPEL. Recently, it has won contracts for deliveries to the new plants of Toyota in Kolín and PSA in Trnava.

About LOGIS

LOGIS is a supplier of expertise services and information technologies. The deliveries are executed in the form of projects aiming at improvement of management effectiveness and development of business success at the customers’ businesses. Within the framework of their solutions, LOGIS applies advanced managing and planning methods and procedures, including high-performance information technologies in the field of Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS).

LOGIS got an order from Blades Technology Ltd.

The Blades Technology, a top producer of jet engine turbine blades, has ordered the delivery and implementation of the advanced production planning system i2 Factory Planner, from the LOGIS company. The implementation is going to be carried out during the first half of 2005.

Frenštát p. R., 10/1/2005

Blades Technology Ltd., a top producer of jet engine turbine blades, a member of The Blades Technology International group, has ordered the delivery and implementation of the advanced production planning system i2 Factory Planner, from the LOGIS company. During a six-months project, the i2 Factory Planner system from i2 Technologies will be implemented. “We chose i2 Factory Planner over more than a dozen competing packages, due to it’s versatility, speed of operation, and ability to model a complex manufacturing plant with minimal customization. We were also impressed by the LOGIS team’s professionalism during the proof of concept stage, and are very satisfied to be working with them on the implementation”, says Dan Chissick, the Project Manager at BTL. The main project targets are the following:

• to improve the ability to cover the surplus of demand over the company´s current capability by increasing its production throughput
• to improve production efficiency through better capacity utilization and increasing the turnover of supply
• to improve customer services parameters (customer satisfaction) by accelerating the adaptability to changing trends and increasing delivery reliability

“Blades Technology is definitely the client who knows exactly what he wants. The complexity of the supplier´s selection process corresponded to it. “We are more than pleased to be chosen by our client in this world-wide competition´”, comments Dalibor Konvička, the Chief Executive Officer of LOGIS and adds: “Our new client earmarked a quality team for the project and he also has high quality data at his disposal. In my opinion this project is highly qualified for excellent results in a short time.”

About Blades Technology

lades Technology Ltd. (BTL) is a manufacturer of airfoil blades for jet engines, using advanced forging and machining technology on various types of metals, with annual sales of over 100 million US$. Currently BTL manufactures over 500 different parts to explicit orders from various customers. BTL has 3 factories and employs around 400-500 workers. Blades Technology International (BTI) is a world-leader in the manufacturing of titanium, stainless steel, and nickel parts for a myriad of industries, including aero and medical. With over 35 years of experience, our specialties are precision forging and high-tech machining of parts made of super alloys. BTL, with annual sales of $180M, is a multi-national company, comprised of three facilities: Blades Technology Ltd. (BTL) in Nahariya, Israel; Precision Components Inc. (PCI) in Columbus, Georgia, USA; and Xian Airfoil Technology Ltd. (XAT) in Xian, China.

About LOGIS

LOGIS is a supplier of expertise services and information technologies. The deliveries are executed in the form of projects aiming at improvement of management effectiveness and development of business success at the customers’ businesses. Within the framework of their solutions, LOGIS applies advanced managing and planning methods and procedures, including high-performance information technologies in the field of Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS).

Hayes Lemmerz Autokola expand APS System Use

Hayes Lemmerz Autokola have been using i2 Factory Planner in passenger car wheel production planning and control, the company’s key business segment, for more than two years. Following their good experience in operating the present system, the company representatives now consider extending the use of the system to further products, namely forklifts.

01/01/2003

Hayes Lemmerz Autokola have been using i2 Factory Planner in passenger car wheel production planning and control, the company’s key business segment, for more than two years. Following their good experience in operating the present system, the company representatives now consider extending the use of the system to further products, namely forklifts. Forklift wheel manufacture department has been in the shadow of the passenger car production department for years. Last year, however, the business volume started to grow substantially. As Jiří Adámek, the Chief Executive Officer maintains: ‘Future prospects warrant optimistic prognoses. We are closing on new businesses; we have introduced the manufacture of split wheels for our major customers. If the production figures keep on growing at this rate, we will have reached the psychological limit of half a million wheels per annum within five years.’ The rapid production growth that was in place even at the end of last year revealed some weaknesses in the planning process adopted along with the wheel manufacture from the affiliated German-based company. Forklift wheel manufacture includes the planning of over 300 general wheel types. Considering the quantity of required product types and their low degree of seriality, the lines must be reconstructed almost every other hour. At these transitions, the reconstruction times must be taken into account, which will amount to several tens of minutes and will reduce the actual availability of the production capacities due to their length. The average capacity utilisation with the key machines has grown by almost tens of percentage points during the last 12 months, owing to new orders placed. The growth began to decelerate the rate at which the orders were passing through the plant and led to an increased volume of work-in-process and reduced order reliability in time. Yet another negative effect involves the poor awareness of the current state of affairs in production and the planned structure of the production plan. The commercial department staff was unable to respond promptly to the newly emerging customer requirements, and/or to explain in advance the changes in delivery dates that occurred along with the introduction of new wheel types. Therefore, the decision was passed to extend the use of state-of-the-art APS planning systems to forklift wheel production planning as well. “The manufacture of passenger car wheels has always been our main business programme. Therefore, the APS system was initially directed to this particular part of production,” says Ing. Ludmila Fonioková, IT Director, and adds: “Our existing experience in operating the APS system has been positive; thanks to the systems, we achieved some important results in the realm of capacity utilisation and improved customer satisfaction. So now the time has come and we’re confronted with the challenge to improve the quality of planning in the domain of forklift wheel manufacture, and it’s clear to us what tool we will use. We’ve decided to extend the use of the i2 Factory Planner system to the forklift wheel manufacture department.” Vít Lednický, the Head of IT System Advancement, had the following to add: “While implemented, the project didn’t pose any serious problems. We already had experience operating the APS system in the production of passenger car wheels. Most members of the implementation team already had the experience and knew where they had to watch out. We headed energetically into the further stage of the project.” As of today, the production of forklift wheel disks and split wheels has been incorporated in the Factory Planner. It has resulted in an increased overview of this part of production, easier identification of bottlenecks and better quality of the work of commercial managers when dealing with their customers. Now, more qualified responses may be provided to the new demands, both in terms of delivery dates and volumes. The project is far from completed, though. The upcoming stage will include the incorporation of forklift wheel assembly. The essential characteristics of this part of production include the complex process of re-building the lines during the transition between the assemblies of the individual types of wheels. The re-building duration is determined by a number of specific factors that stem from the wheels’ technical parameters, such as the number of fixing openings, the diameter of the central opening and the pitch circles, wheel inset, contact surfaces, etc. The team that is about to rise to this challenge will seek to increase the practical use of the assembling lines, thus minimising losses. The project, fully supported by the management, will be subject to close observation. According to Chief Executive Officer, Jiří Adámek, the application of the APS system in the process of production planning is in full accordance with the OPEX (Operational Excellence) enterprise policy based on continuous improvement principles and presenting Hayes Lemmerz Autokola as a premium quality global manufacturer of wheels with a growing number of satisfied customers, educating their best people and continually reducing costs.

About Hayes Lemmerz

Hayes Lemmerz International, Inc. is one of the leading global suppliers of automotive and commercial wheels for on-road transport, brakes, power trains, suspension and other relieved components. The company has over 40 plants, and 3 joint ventures with approximately 11, 000 employees. Hayes Lemmerz Autokola, a.s. is a member of Hayes Lemmerz International, Wheels Group. It is a manufacturer of steel wheels for passenger cars. It is a significant supplier of VW, Ford and OPEL. Recently, it has won contracts for deliveries to the new plants of Toyota in Kolín and PSA in Trnava.

About LOGIS

LOGIS is a supplier of expertise services and information technologies. The deliveries are executed in the form of projects aiming at improvement of management effectiveness and development of business success at the customers’ businesses. Within the framework of their solutions, LOGIS applies advanced managing and planning methods and procedures, including high-performance information technologies in the field of Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS).