Alcan Cable orders iBaan suply chain scheduler
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Alcan Cable is to implement iBaan Supply Chain Scheduler in its seven manufacturing sites throughout the US and Canada. It expects to improve supply chain responsiveness and streamline its business processes as it moves from make-to-stock to make-to-order. Brian Tinham reports
Alcan Cable, the aluminum cable, rod and strip products manufacturer, is to implement the iBaan Supply Chain Scheduler part of Baan’s iBaan Manufacturing enterprise management suite, in its seven manufacturing sites throughout the US and Canada. It expects to improve supply chain responsiveness and streamline its business processes as it moves from make-to-stock to make-to-order.
When complete, this will be the biggest roll-out for the application with the highest number of production sites within a single company. Instead of centralised order-processing, gathering orders from all customers and redistributing them to production and distribution sites, the new system will release orders to appropriate production plants as they comes in, reducing lead-times and operating costs.
Says Guy Brassard, MIS co-ordinator director at Alcan’s Shawinigan, Quebec facility: “Supply Chain Scheduler can help us accelerate our order processing and give us the ability to synchronise and optimise our batch processing, one of the critical production constraints in the cable industry, by building highly efficient schedules.
“It can also help us manage our human resources more efficiently – for instance by managing a single employee who can work on multiple machines. With these improvements we will be able to respond faster, easier and more efficiently to our customers.”
He says the system will also enable users to view schedules graphically, while also providing interactive features, such as drag-and-drop, that allows users to manage and change schedules in real time close to the wire.
Sophie Caramigeas, iBaan Manufacturing product manager in the US, says: “Implementation of the software results in operating cost reduction, through set-up reduction and better set-up sequencing definition. Even though inventory was not the main issue for Alcan Cable, it is obvious that having the ability to move from a make-to-stock to a make-to-order environment, and achieve shorter production lead-times, can help in inventory-related cost savings.”
The first implementation prototype will be at Alcan’s Shawinigan plant. Roll-out to the other six sites is planned for completion at the end of 2002, with Baan Consulting services managing the project.
