Engineer Stefano Setti, Senior VP Industrial Operation, tells us about the innovation path of Silca, a leading company in the production of keys and duplicating machines. The challenge: the transition from a manufacturing-driven to a market-driven production model with the support of finite-capacity planning and scheduling software. The interview with the Senior Vice President Industrial Operation KS Segment of Silca.
“With CyberPlan we are able to make quick decisions thanks to the simulation of all the complexity of our company in less than 2 minutes. All this has allowed us to reduce lead times and set-ups, achieving a level of service to the market of absolute excellence.”
Engineer Stefano Setti – Senior Vice President Industrial Operation KS Segment – Silca
Supporting strong innovation
In 2010 Silca decided to embark on an important transformation process with the aim of changing the production model from manufacturing-driven to market-driven. This transformation has required major structural, methodological and organisational changes.
CyberPlan: for an integrated and high-performance Supply Chain
The definition of a new planning model involved the introduction of integrated planning and scheduling software. The latter solution is able to best combine the needs of the market with those of production, managing a complex reality such as that of Silca.
Through careful software selection, CyberPlan APS was chosen as a tool capable of managing the complexity of production. Sales and Operation Planning, Master Planning, Finite Capacity Planning and Scheduling define the complexity and totality of the processes involved and covered by the new solution.
Results: customer focus with maximum production efficiency
To date, through a complete mapping of the entire capacitive structure with management of both primary (materials, work centres/machines) and secondary (human resources/tools) constraints, Silca is able to simulate the entire business complexity in less than 2 minutes.
Any variation to the outline of exogenous type (world of supply and/or variation of demand) or endogenous (production constraints) once examined is simulated through different scenarios and the resulting impacts are analyzed in order to allow Silca to undertake the appropriate countermeasures in a very short time.
The implementation of CyberPlan lasted 6 months and led to considerable results in the Keys department, such as:
- Reduction of setup times;
- Lead time and Work In Progress reduction;
- Customer’s Service Level at a level of excellence;
- Increased productivity.
The company
Silca Spa was founded in 1974 in Vittorio Veneto under the name of Società Italiana Lavorazione Chiavi e Affini. Today it is an Italian company specialising in the production of keys, key duplicating machines and semi-industrial and industrial machinery dedicated to the production of keys.
Silca is part of the Key Systems Segment, a world market leader with 6 production sites, which is part of the dormakaba Group.
Over 700 million keys are produced per year, divided into 85,000 references. Over 25,000 traditional duplicating machines and over 11,000 Automotive Devices are also produced, in a total range of more than 150 models.
Why CyberPlan?
“In the software selection phase, we identified the potential of a rapid production reconfiguration based on repetitive simulations in order to optimize all critical factors of production (people, plants, materials), with the support of Key Performance Indicators that could be defined based on the specific needs of our plant resulting from market demand (Decision Making Process supported by predictive analytics).”