Salad days: scheduling packs a punch

Factory disposals down 75% and work in progress (WIP) stock holding down 95%: those are top line benefits at £32m turnover Tilmanstone Salads in Eythorne Dover, part of the Geest Group – driven largely by its integrated electronic advanced planning and scheduling (APS) system. But these aren't just from real-time optimised factory scheduling and just-in-time manufacturing: Richard Parr, factory manager, says they also come from better business, capex, labour and materials planning, achieved through visibility of consequences. Not only was the cost of achieving these outstanding achievements small – less than £10,000 for the Preactor APS – but so successful has it been that factory SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems are now being implemented to take the project even further. Next, Parr has similarly ambitious plans for web-based supply chain management, probably founded on the same systems. Tilmanstone produces pre-packed deli-style salads, and has a throughput of around 9.8m packs per annum, although with huge seasonal variation. It works with 196 materials producing 55 SKUs across nine process stages before packing into despatch crates and strapping onto pallets. Back in 2001, when the firm was investing in multi-million pound new facilities, management decided to radically overhaul scheduling. Tilmanstone had been using Excel spreadsheets for the purpose, alongside ImpCom, which looks after stock control, planning, accounts and sales – due to be replaced soon with Protean – and a bespoke RGP (Recipe Generation Program) system, which handles development and manufacturing BoMs. Although the spreadsheets scheduled the big factory picture, they couldn't cope with the process interfaces. "Basically, we had a 'hole' in the factory where we had no visibility, and we would often end up with schedules that couldn't work. Now we still do demand planning with spreadsheets … but then we use Preactor for everything else – from capacity, labour resources and business planning to capital equipment justification, and driving day-to-day production on the factory floor. "For example, I trial run the next peak day from the forecast through Preactor to see that it will fit our capability, and then use that to visualise the bottlenecks and plan for future investment. We investigate alternatives and look at the issues it throws up – but Preactor's driving my capex requisitions and sign-off." As for production scheduling, he says: "Preactor gives you layers of visibility and you can schedule from wherever you want and see the resources being consumed." Looking at the sequence of events now, orders come in via EDI into ImpCom. They're pulled into a spreadsheet – which can look at daily, weekly, monthly and yearly buckets – then exported to RGP, for material requirements and forecast production. Look and see Data is then automatically exported to Preactor which provides an optimised schedule and downloads that to the plant Olympus SCADA system, now being rolled out. For the rest of the plant it's paper work instructions run out of Preactor and RGP. "We're trying to go paperless and to close the loop with SCADA. Production plans pop up on local factory screens and, as operators call up a job, that releases materials and so on. Meanwhile, we get live updates of the real production situation back into Preactor for rescheduling purposes if need be." And the result: "We don't have any WIP now," says Parr. By which he means that since the introduction of Preactor, he is so confident of materials and production plans that he now starts and finishes each day with a clean factory. "I've cut WIP stock holding by 95%. We used to have two days in goods-in and one day in the factory. So I've taken a whole day out of the supply chain. That's better for quality and it's less money tied up in stock, less clutter in the factory so less time spent trying to find things, better labour control…" Key benefits

• Factory disposals down 75%
• WIP stock holding down 95%
• Taken 33% out of the supply chain
• Better business, capex, labour and materials planning
• Less clutter in the factory so less time spent finding things
• Better flexible labour control
• Visibility of plant and labour utilised