Manufacturing Executive - November 2008 - (Page 25) other, except by standing next to them,” says Operations Manager Jeroen de Jager, who is part of the executive team reporting to Ahold Coffee CEO Ward de Groote. That meant that if a line was down simply because it was out of paper for packaging, it might as well have been down for more serious reasons, such as a mechanical failure. Executives would not know the difference or how to act upon the differences unless they went to the plant. And since frequent trips to the plant floor are not always the best use of executive time, the company realised that something had to be done. “We decided to connect every single production line to a central system,” de Jager says. Three years ago, the company came up with the solution: to outfit the plant floor with MES. After evaluating software from three vendors, it chose Citect’s Ampla software, over programs from Holland’s HAI and Siemens. The company took a full year to deploy the software, with the help of Dutch systems integrator Burgot-Epsia, whose tasks included tying MES data into the NEC FlexProcess ERP enterprise software that Ahold uses. One of the most difficult challenges during implementation was “making sure the information you’re collecting is classified correctly,” de Jager says. In other words, coding of the many elements noted by Ampla had to be consistent so that the FlexProcess ERP didn’t start recognising, say, a 250-gram bag as a 500gram bag, or an empty paper tray as a blown fuse. Ahold equipped each of the 15 lines one by one and decided to hold off for now on the roasters. The first phase went live two years ago. De Jager won’t reveal how much Ahold spent, but he says the project paid for itself after the first full year through what he characterises as “the improvement of overall equipment effectiveness.” Translation: It has helped the company cut costs. Ampla makes detailed note of whether a production line is running on target or has slowed down or stopped. Just as important, if there is trouble, it notes why. The software can send executives specific information on things such as whether a line is out of paper, under-filling sacks of coffee, splitting bags, or downright out of order. It also makes constant note of production levels and yields. The gains offered by MES can come from extremely granular information. For example, de Jager notes, Ahold typically optimises a line to put a cer tain number of bags into a car ton. Sometimes a customer will request a deviation — it might ask for five bags instead of 10. The MES system takes note of how efficiently the line runs at the adjusted level. “The MES might note we’re losing 20% efficiency,” de Jager says. “We can then decide whether we want to invest to get the 20% back or maybe we want to go back to the customer and talk about changing the packaging.” Another advantage provided by the Ampla integration: The ERP system can feed order changes to the production line in an instant. Previously, it took days of circulating memos to execute an order change. “Now, within 20 minutes, it’s on the operators’ panel,” says Robin De Jager says the project paid for itself after the first full year through what he characterises as “the improvement of overall equipment effectiveness.” van der Spoel, Ahold’s head of IT. Ahold started out applying Ampla for only a fraction of the purposes it has in mind. A full-on, multi-purpose start “would have been chaos,” van der Spoel says. But Ahold keeps adding functionality and finding new uses. At the moment, it is tweaking Ampla to take note of the quality of coffee coming off the production line, recording features such as the grade of the grind and its colour. In the future, executives plan to use Ampla to generate shift reports; today, the company generates reports on a daily basis, but not shift by shift. Ahold might also add MES to the roaster. “We will investigate our options there in the near future,” de Jager says. So far, all of the integration has been on the buying and planning side of the business, but de Jager does not rule out tying Ampla information into buying operations. “I think we will,” he says. De Jager doesn’t expect to use the system to source ESOURCE CENTER beans so much as to inform buying decisions for new maARTICLES: Industry Update: MES chinery and packaging matewww.managingautomation.com/mesupdate rials. MES “will provide us Can MES Play a Lead Role? with exact information about www.managingautomation.com/mesrole utilisation and efficiency of maIntegration Strategies Lead to Strange chines from specific suppliers Bedfellows on which we can build busiwww.managingautomation.com/strange ness cases for expansion,” says SAP Vs. Oracle: Tackling the Plant Floor de Jager, who is clearly a fan of www.managingautomation.com/erpextend the efficiencies gained by taking detailed note of manufacCOMPANIES MENTIONED: Citect, a unit of Schneider Electric turing humdrum. www.managingautomation.com/citect2 If he were to share advice NEC with other manufacturing exwww.managingautomation.com/nec ecutives, it might be this: Wake up and smell the MES. s R November 2008 25 http://www.managingautomation.com/mesupdate http://www.managingautomation.com/mesrole http://www.managingautomation.com/strange http://www.managingautomation.com/erpextend http://www.managingautomation.com/citect2 http://www.managingautomation.com/nec
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