East Metal is a recognised manufacturer of metal components with facilities in Denmark and Latvia. The company recently decided to replace its system for production planning and they chose ROB-EX.
Visual plans give better understanding and responsiveness
“ROB-EX is a great help in our planning process. One of the big advantages is that it makes our plans visual so that everyone can understand them and so that all dependencies are clear. We see the gaps at once and can make adjustments in time”, says Christian Juul Jørgensen, Country Manager Latvia at East Metal.
Planning in an ERP is not optimal
One of the ideas behind implementing ROB-EX was to separate the ERP and the scheduling process. Until then, the company’s ERP was used to control the production but it was a troublesome and slightly outdated way to work. East Metal soon has to upgrade to a more modern ERP, but the value of having a dedicated planning system like ROB-EX is clear.
“It is super visual, easy to work with and to understand for everyone. Instead of having whiteboards that never get updated and papers that just lie there, we can use ROB-EX to “live transmit” the plan, so that everybody knows it. Therefore, we will continue to use ROB-EX when our new ERP is in place.”
Makes it possible for more people to contribute
A more non-hierarchical approach is also on Christian Juul Jørgensen’s and his colleagues’ wishlist. The planning process used to be top-down and opaque, but now the responsibility will be more shared and knowledge more visible, so that the employees can contribute to a more efficient production and thereby better economic results for the company.
“With ROB-EX we have made things more transparent and we can now communicate with the entire production floor, even the individual machines. The great visibility that ROB-EX provides has improved our efficiency with, in my estimation, nearly 10%. We now have a 89% utilisation rate of the man-hours available and this has immediate effect on the bottom line”, Christian Juul Jørgensen says.
Implementation by remote
Usually, ROB-EX is installed, calibrated and tested on the customer’s premises but due to the corona pandemic the solution was activated on the distance. Through a close collaboration between East Metal and specialists from ROB-EX the system was implemented perfectly, quickly and in a simple way “on the remote”, allowing East Metal to soon reap the benefits despite restrictions.
All the support needed
After the installation East Metal was connected to the technical expert team at ROB-EX for day-to-day support. We always stay in close contact to ensure that the customer gets the maximum benefits of their new system for production planning.