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How Unipromet achieved more planning efficiency & transparency and increased throughput by better usage of resource capacities

The transparency gained through visual scheduling was key to achieving operational agility.

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The Serbian company Unipromet, founded in 1989, specializes in the production and installation of road fence security systems, noise protection panels, seam pipes, and various steel constructions. The company has an own hot deep galvanizing plant for the finishing coating of all steel elements. They process over 80.000 t of steel and aluminum per year, and the metal processing is conducted on over 50.000 m² of working area and 150.000 m² of land in two facilities.

Unipromet uses visual production tool

 

Executive summary

The initial situation

After switching from Dynamics NAV version 5 with an included visual production planning tool to a new version, that came without this planning tool, it was realized that the planning process couldn’t be managed with NAV alone. Hence, a visual production planning and scheduling add-in was needed.

 

Solution & results

NPS, the NAV partner of Unipromet, recommended NETRONIC as provider of visual scheduling add-ins for Microsoft Dynamics NAV. After having looked at the options offered by NETRONIC, Unipromet decided for the Visual Production Scheduler (VPS). Working with the add- in led to:

  • a considerably streamlined, and hence both more effective and more efficient production planning process
  • a clear-cut overview and better usage of resource load and capacities
  • in the wake of this, considerable time saving in the operations management for each and every work order
  • transparent schedule as stable basis for decision making

The situation before working with the Visual Production Scheduler

For some years, the company had been using Dynamics NAV version 5 as ERP and its included graphical planning tool. Interestingly enough, this tool at that point of time was provided by Microsoft but built with NETRONIC’s base technology enabling software developers to build visual planning applications.

When Unipromet switched to a role-tailored client version of Dynamics NAV, they found, to their regret, that Microsoft no longer offered the integrated visual planning tool. From then on, the company only used manual Excel-based reports for keeping track of capacity load and production performance.

 

Manual approach was inaccurate and offered no control

The growth of the company and the increasing production capacities posed major challenges for production planning at Unipromet and made it necessary to put the planning process on a secure footing. Using manually created production plans not only was too inaccurate, it also “ …often required a lot of time and resources”, reports Ljilja Božović, IT director at Unipromet.

What was even worse - since the manual planning was very time-consuming, “accurate plans very often were not even made due to the lack of professional staff or resources”, says Ljilja. This, of course, did little to help keeping track of capacity load and the whole production process. In fact, establishing a structured and transparent planning process thus became impossible. And so, after three years of trying to manage without a visual planning board the company realized that “…it was necessary to provide production visualization.”

 

Requirements for the visualization tool

The tool should be able to

  • bring structure to their production planning
  • provide transparency of the production schedule by visualizing
    • capacity loads
    • bottlenecks
  • integrate with Microsoft Dynamics NAV

Experiences working with the Visual Production Scheduler

 

NETRONIC VPS fits

Searching for a tool offering the features described above, Unipromet was supported by NPS, their Dynamics NAV partner and at the same time long-term reseller of NETRONIC. After an in-depth analysis of the company’s problems and situation “our NAV provider recommended NETRONIC to us”, as Ljilja remembers.

 

Usage of the NETRONIC VPS

Having used the VPS for over two years now, Ljilja can report significant changes and improvements:

“We got a better insight into capacity and human resources. This gives us the the possibility to use available capacities and resources for extra production. Hence, the VPS enabled us to increase our throughput.”

However, Unipromet achieved more than an improved utilization of their resource. The entire process of production planning has become more effective and more efficient:

“The operation management for each and every work order was also made easier. Consequently, the operational production planning has also improved significantly. We got an extra tool that reduces the time used for the analysis of the workload and that gives exact guidelines what to do next.”

 

Advantages of the VPS

  • better overview of resource capacity and load
  • better use of resources leading to the ability to accept and fulfill more orders
  • the total operations management for each production order became a lot easier
  • significant improvement of the whole production planning process
  • reducing the time used for the analysis of the workload per working order

In short, the company gained, as Ljilja puts it, “overall improvement for production decision making.”


Unipromet uses visual production scheduling tool for producing noise protection pannels

Pleasant cooperation with NETRONIC

Ljilja is happy about the beneficial and smooth collaboration with NETRONIC:

“It is a delight using this advanced tool for our daily work. NETRONIC helped us solve our problems in production, its planning and management We gladly recommend NETRONIC and offer live experience in working with them and their software.”

Discover how NETRONIC can help you run your shop better with visual production scheduling

 

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Learn more about the product with which
Unipromet gained success in scheduling

 

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Summary: tangible visual production scheduling benefits

Transparent scheduling allows efficient resource capacity usage

Considerable streamlining and improvement of the complete production process

Solid basis for decision making

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