The path of production implementation thanks to CyberPlan, finite-capacity planning and scheduling software. The story of this case of the leading company in the oil & gas sector in the interview with the Chief Information Officer of Pietro Fiorentini Spa.
“It can be said that Cybertec and Fiorentini grew together; the project was in fact started in 1995. At the time, Fiorentini was already a great industrial reality and as such a precursor compared to other companies in the field of innovation not only of products but also of processes.”
Romeo Menti – CIO and Supply Chain & Logistics Manager – Pietro Fiorentini Spa
The challenge
Cybertec and Fiorentini can be said to have grown together; the project was in fact started in 1995. At that time, Fiorentini was already a major industrial company and as such an innovative forerunner, compared to other companies, both in terms of products and processes.
In this regard, in those years a corporate reorganization was initiated supported by a leading international consulting firm that had identified areas for improvement also in finite capacity planning in order to achieve one of the primary objectives for the company’s business: the improvement of the service level.
The solution
CyberPlan, Cybertec’s Advanced Planning and Scheduling system, was included in a corporate reorganization process that had highlighted the necessary revision of the basic data as a primary criticality. The basic data were present but on the whole unreliable.
Another challenge overcome was the planning, centralized on a single tool, of the component departments and plants that work for different logics (in the catalogue the former and customer/order the latter). The last and most important challenge was to combine within a single tool both MRP-type logics and logics closer to the Lean philosophy, such as Kanban, to which a scheduling tool has been linked that takes into account the constraints of Kanban and that gives information on any stock breaks due to an unforeseen increase in demand.
Results
Planning, previously linked solely to people’s goodwill, has been standardised and therefore made more easily manageable. Checking the schedule also improved the crossing time and consequently the level of service. Critical issues are now identified in advance, both with regard to missing materials and the management of production capacity. The material/missing analysis is carried out in advance, also taking into account forecasts, and is periodically checked. This allowed for more stable production plans and a further increase in service level. In fact, it was able to carry out finite capacity dating of sales orders and thus also govern the impacts of independent demand.
Why Cybertec?
CyberPlan entered after a software selection lasting a few months that put the three best known players on the table at the time. The reasons that led to the choice of CyberPlan were multiple: from the unique characteristics of the product to the strong capacity of the Cybertec team. The consultants are all very prepared both on the functionalities and on the logic typical of the contract sector.
At CyberPlan we appreciate:
- its configurability around our needs;
- the rapid processing speed (What if analysis that allows simulations of different scenarios) of a few minutes;
- the high simplicity and intuitiveness in the functions of facilitating expediting processes and re-scheduling capabilities (two things that make it possible to keep the plan up to date)
- the visibility of the simple, intuitive and immediate plan through full-pegging in order to evaluate the impacts of requests and/or changes to the sales, production or purchase plan. All this both in terms of detailed impacts on the individual sales order and on a set of the latter and/or on all the objects of the production and supply plan.
The company
Pietro Fiorentini Spa operates internationally designing, manufacturing and marketing components, systems and services for the measurement and regulation of natural gas, in order to allow and increase its safe use by distributors and users, with a view to continuous evolution.