New project
At Kjærgaard new orders are created as projects in the ERP system with an estimate of time spent per project phase such as scheduling, installation, programming, documentation, and implementation. Created projects are transferred to ROB-EX for further scheduling.
On-going follow-up on projects
The many fitters in the company are listed in ROB-EX, and it is the individual department, which is responsible for distributing tasks in the subprojects. When tasks in a project is appointed to each operator, Kjærgaard can print out work sheets for each employee. All employees also have electronic access to ROB-EX where they can follow the project and the remaining tasks for each and all related personnel. At least once a week the employees must report time spent per task. Time spent on the projects are registered in the ERP system and then exchanged with ROB-EX.
Head of department can follow the project’s progress via ROB-EX, and continually assess the project according to time of delivery. This gives the head of department oppotunity to bring a project extra resources or take in more tasks if the department has excess capacity.
Extra flexibility
Lars Johansen, head of department at Kjærgaard, says about ROB-EX: “Vi have seven department heads whose task is to schedule the projects by distributing the tasks to all operators. Department heads can see all operators in ROB-EX regardless of which department the operator belongs to. This provides additional flexibility because excess capacity can be moved to departments that lack employees.
A good overview
In ROB-EX Kjærgaard can continuously monitor tasks and progress through feedback from employees, and it provides a good overview of the current status for each subproject and each employee’s tasks. The electronic calendar is loaded into ROB-EX giving heads of departments the opportunity to see scheduled vacation for each employee. They also register absenteeism due to illness and other absense in ROB-EX, as it affects the time schedule for projects. Earlier Kjærgaard used Excel for scheduling, but it became too heavy and time-consuming to maintain.
“ROB-EX is the tool we have been looking for. ROB-EX saves us from many hours of daily scheduling and project monitoring, and I have no doubt that we already have earned the investment in ROB-EX home many times”, says Lars Johansen.
