In 2022, Kellpo, a Danish manufacturer of packaging for the food industry, chose ROB-EX as its core solution for implementation of digital production scheduling. Up to this point, the enterprise had experienced severe limitations concerning its existing scheduling processes. The main issues included the lack of overview, and the vulnerability of the enterprise’s scheduling capacity. All responsibilities concerning scheduling were allocated to a single employee. This meant that one man was responsible for keeping production up and running at all times, for ensuring that the required orders were produced and for ensuring that produced goods were delivered on time. This is a heavy burden for any one man to bear.
Jimmi Svensson, Planner and Head of Quality at Kellpo explains: ”Before ROB-EX, we really didn’t have any formally defined scheduling. Our production manager had the entire production plan inside his head – and, understandably, he succumbed to stress after a while. That was when I took over the scheduling of production. The entire production plan was spread out across several spreadsheets and a number of writing pads. For all intents and purposes, we really didn’t have any dedicated production scheduling to speak of. We desperately needed an overview, and we were stressed as an organisation, simply because all of the scheduling was allocated to a single person. We really needed help, and we chose ROB-EX as our solution to solving the problems.”
A simple and efficient process
In order to identify the value creation for Kellpo, two specialists from ROB-EX, Anders Holberg and Henrik Madsen, started by carrying out a full solution assessment. The objective was to gain an overview of the current situation, including the company’s processes and procedures. This provided a strong and transparent basis for analysing and identifying the necessary and targeted requirements and wishes concerning the scheduling solution. As an integral part of the solution assessment process, the ROB-EX specialists and Kellpo jointly identified the core solution.
”The implementation itself and the professional insights into our production processes were handled and achieved very quickly. It didn’t take Henrik long to provide a demo of what ROB-EX would look like, when set up with our own machines and routes,” says Jimmi Svensson, and continues: ”Initially, I think that we really didn’t have all that many demands concerning ROB-EX – however, the demands that we did have were quite substantial, and we were blowing them a bit out of proportion. Anders and Henrik were good at untangling things for us, and helping us see that we would benefit from keeping things simple and efficient. They were able to pinpoint precisely what it was that we needed, and which levels of detail we actually required. If we had to go with our initial thinking, everything would have been far too complicated and comprehensive from the beginning. The way that we wanted to do things would have been far too cumbersome. Today, we are at a stage where we would like to expand on certain features and processes, but these features and processes are not the ones that we envisioned initially. It has proven to be a great service to ourselves to have started out by getting to know the standard version over a period of time.”
Value creation must materialise very quickly
It is a core principle at ROB-EX that all project processes must be simple and transparent. The customer must see fast and tangible value creation generated by their new digital scheduling tool. The implementation process for ROB-EX is conducted as sprints; first a solution assessment and then the activation of ROB-EX. The customer and our ROB-EX specialists work closely together from start to finish – either on-site or via daily online meetings. Kellpo also experienced simple and transparent processes, and value creation was achieved very quickly: ”We have a pretty straightforward, non-complex type of production, and it didn’t take long to get started. We had the needed overview the minute we were up and running. It happened on the day that we learned to set up orders in ROB-EX. As I mentioned earlier, scheduling used to be a highly vulnerable point in our production – especially during holidays or periods of sickness. A lot of the pressure related to being heavily dependent on a single employee for scheduling has been alleviated. More people have access to the production plan – and our order confirmation time is much shorter,” says Jimmi Svensson.
When the activation of ROB-EX is complete, Support takes over
At ROB-EX, customers are never left high and dry once the scheduling solution is activated. If help is needed after activation, ROB-EX is only a phone call away. ROB-EX Support is always ready to assist, if we run into challenges with ROB-EX. Jimmi Svensson explains: ”Last week, we were unable to run an import, so we reached out to ROB-EX Support, and I talked to Katrine. She helped us solve the problem – and, in general, the help that we get from ROB-EX Support always does the trick. They are very easy to get a hold of. If I have a question concerning our data, for example how we can export and use data, I contact Henrik and bounce my thoughts off him. If I have an issue concerning ROB-EX, I call ROB-EX Support.”