Assi Helps You Visualize Your Production Data
What have we done?
The customer's ERP data was difficult to understand, especially for people working outside of production. The customer also wanted to imporve the communication between sales and production; sales wanted the opportunity to see free production capacity easily and quickly. In close cooperation with the customer, we implemented a production line visualization tool that reads the customer's ERP data and presents it on a timeline.
How did we do it?
The project was carried out in close cooperation with the customer. We started the work by getting to know the customer's everyday life on site at the factory. Throughout he technical implementation we had regular meetings with the customer to make sure the outcome meets the customer's needs.
Together with the customer, we defined
Necessary views and UI-designs for production line data
What information about the orders Assi should present
Color codes to indicate issues to consider (own threshold values, e.g. late and at risk of being late)
"Optimizing production is very important to us. Seeing the current situation at a glance helps to evaluate the real-time capacity. With the help of the information, we are now able to deepen the dialogue between sales and the production designer, for example, and thus manage sales more strategically, making full use of our capacity."
Sanna Hämäläinen
factory manager, Vitrulan Composites Oy
Assi freed up time for operational development
The goal of the project implemented with Mindhive was to get real-time information of the production lines visualized for the production planner.
– Optimizing production is very important to us. Seeing the current situation at a one glance helps to evaluate the real-time capacity. With the help of this information we are now able to deepen the dialogue between, for example, sales and the production planner, and thus manage sales more strategically, making full use of capacity, says Sanna Hämäläinen, Mikkeli factory manager.
The personnel of Vitrulan Composites Oy, which manufactures high-quality glass and carbon fiber reinforcements around the clock in Mikkeli, manages 50 production lines and more than 2,000 products on a daily basis. Mindhive implemented a new user-friendly and visual user interface for Vitrulan, which collects all relevant information for the production planner in real time.
In a short time, the factory has noticed that time is saved for development and customer service simply because the production planner does not have to go through all the machines to know their status.
– Saving time and controlling the overall picture easier has smoothed out the wrinkles on the forehead of our production planning manager, Hämäläinen says smiling.
Mindhive implemented the project in close cooperation with Vitrulan. To ensure the overall picture, the team visited the factory at the beginning of the project and the work was progressed together under the rhythm of weekly meetings.
– We have a generic model of the production line visualization tool. This greatly facilitates the dialogue with the customer right from the start, and thus we are also able to modify the final product faster to meet the needs. With the help of the model, the desired result can be reached much more cost-effectively than without it, says data scientist Ulisses Camargo, who was responsible for the project at Mindhive.
Saving time and controlling the overall picture easier has smoothed out the wrinkles on the forehead of our production planning manager, Hämäläinen says smiling.
Agile development worked brilliantly in the project, as it produced insights into further development opportunities from both sides.
– The active participation of the IT manager at Vitrulan and the rest of the team ensured a good result. At the same time, possible further development ideas came to the surface, which could be used to get even more out of the tool, says Camargo.