Hayes Lemmerz Autokola expand APS System Use

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).