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).