Siemens augments ERP systems with Orchestrate production scheduling software to simplify production planning and cut costs.
Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics manufactures world-leading laboratory equipment, ranging from automated haematology to immuno diagnostics. The process involves complex planning and scheduling activities around the production of minute multi-coated beads. Like so many large organisations, the group has invested in a comprehensive ERP solution to manage their extensive corporate-wide activities. And, like so many large companies, has discovered that certain niche activities are better managed using stand-alone dedicated systems. The Healthcare Diagnostics company in Llanberis, Wales is using Orchestrate production planning software very successfully to manage the complex planning required to schedule bead manufacturing.
The challenge
Although the concept
is simple, planning and scheduling the manufacture of diagnostic beads can be
likened to working on a three dimensional jigsaw. There are two related
processes – first coating the beads with organic and non-organic substances and
then drying them. The complications arise from competing demands for production
and drying equipment, where timing is essential. Batches are unable to wait
between process steps or the batch will not meet its strict quality margins. To
complicate the issue, coating time is measured in days, specific machines are
validated for only certain coatings, and organic coatings have a limited life, sometimes
involving critical incubation times for enzymes. Scheduling the batches in the
most efficient routing leaves no room for failure, or the batch could be lost.
Before implementing
Orchestrate, schedulers were spending between 20 and 30 hours a week compiling
schedules for beads and their buffer stocks of coatings. The complexities
involved imposed a week-and-a-half scheduling horizon, an obvious restriction
on flexibility.
On a continuous shift
system, as many as 50 different people working in separate rooms needed access
to the schedules, and these were communicated by email and displayed on a large
central whiteboard. Inevitably, this led to the possibility of multiple version
of the schedule on the shop floor, deviations to the schedule, missed tasks and
considerable scope for human error.
The Solution
In January 2012 the company implemented
Orchestrate production scheduling software, linked to a giant touch-screen planning board that displays the
current schedule in real time. Planned times are automatically replaced by
actual times, critical tasks highlighted and automated alerts identify
potentially missed operations.
Orchestrate sits
comfortably beside the company’s SAP system,
which provides input in the form of MRP requirements. It has not been necessary
to integrate the systems.
Since implementation
the time taken in scheduling has been cut by 66%, representing a saving of £20,000
a year. More importantly, it has relieved key staff from a demanding but
mechanical task, allowing them to devote more time to other key operations.
Multiple versions of
the schedule have been eliminated, with a single version of Orchestrate production planning software displayed on an interactive SMART board. It displays a rolling Gantt chart in
real-time, automatically scrolling as time progresses, which means it can be
left running on-screen without any operator intervention.
Communications have
been streamlined and the potential for errors, shop floor staff working with
outdated information, missed tasks and lost product removed. Lost product due
to unavailability of critical manufacturing resources has been cut, saving
£40,000 a year.
Incubation times can
now be monitored in real time, improving the quality of information displayed.
Where previously, batches had to be planned a week ahead and changes simply not
feasible because of the complexity of working with spreadsheets, now changes
can be implemented within 24 .
Within Orchestrate,
actual times are tracked and should a task status not be updated to ‘started’
or ‘finished’, the resource will automatically be highlighted in red as an
alarm signal to the operator that the task should have started or completed.
The raw coatings, or
buffers, are manufactured in different batch sizes to
the production coating process, making the planning of buffer solutions very
complex. Orchestrate production planning software provides a standard report that details which buffers are
required and when to meet demand from the production batches.
“The system is so demonstrably better than our
previous approach and was cost justified in just six months,” says Ian Owen,
Production Scheduler. “The systems specialists at Production Modelling very
quickly understood our requirements and had a working prototype live within
about one week. The real message is that the system has
made life so much simpler, as well as making the whole planning process more
effective.”
“We have been working
with Production Modelling now for more than four years and we have a number of
new projects in the pipeline, expanding the use of Orchestrate to different
areas within the organisation. It’s a great partnership”
Key Benefits
- £60K minimum costs saving per annum
- 15 hours a week saving in scheduling time
- 5 day reduction to a 1 day scheduling to production lead time
- One live version of Orchestrate displayed on interactive SMART board
- Built in incubation time allowances
- Built in alarm to indicate possibility of missed tasks
- Automatic intermediate buffer solution report
