If we were to describe Walvoil’s reality in just two words, we would surely choose ambition and complexity. Ambition because Walvoil has always worked at a high pace to achieve goals higher than those considered feasible. Complexity, because the company today includes within it more realities of the hydraulic department.
Walvoil represents the “Valves Division” of Interpump Group and is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of hydraulic products, electronics and complete mechatronic systems. It was born from the acquisition of other brands in the sector, the first step took place between 2007 and 2008, when the three Reggio area companies Walvoil, Oleostar and Oleoplus merged into a single company, Walvoil S.p.A. In 2015 this became part of the Interpump group, and in 2016 it incorporated the companies Hydrocontrol and Galtech, two former competitors, already part of the group.
All this has led to a great fragmentation of the company and to increasingly high levels of complexity. Suffice it to say that the data to be managed comes from over 20,000 purchase codes and this amount of information results in rather long processing times compared to the average, despite the use of advanced tools. In fact, a complete round of MRP and scheduler takes about 45 minutes to complete, but Walvoil, thanks to a rigorous work schedule, still manages to make it run twice a day, so as to have updated data both in the morning and in the afternoon.
In the complexity mentioned, external processing by subcontractors must also be considered, activities that are entirely planned by the company, as well as the difficulty of finding materials and raw materials typical of this period, the slowdown in transport and the relationship with the different Walvoil branches in the world, in particular those in the USA, China, Korea and India. As a result, the unique features of Walvoil’s global supply chain, and the diverse product characteristics it offers on the market, benefit most from Cybertec’s advanced production planning and scheduling tools.
Finally, the market in which Walvoil operates has currently been characterized by major changes that have increased the complexity related to the procurement of raw materials, especially if this happens on a global scale.
An advanced solution for a wide reality
The benefits of using advanced APS software to manage production have become increasingly clear as the size of the group has grown. The economies of scale resulting from the growth of the group with the union of the different offices and related management systems had made it useful to update the APS. In addition, the company’s great growth had led management to choose to adopt a shared and powerful planning tool, which connected all the plants and gave more precise and precise information, both in terms of responses to the customer and internal planning of the production departments. Ilaria Casoli, Project Manager, explains that the main objective for the company is to date sales orders reliably, a result that can only be achieved thanks to a more structured planning.
The software selection carried out by Walvoil to identify the best possible supplier highlighted how Cybertec was the most solid parent company, able to understand and respond to the needs of the company and to connect to management systems with greater claims. The choice was also favoured by the possibility of seeing a practical case of using the software and the advantages it allows to obtain. In fact, during the selection phase, Walvoil management had the opportunity to view the software in use at another company in the group, Interpump Hydraulics Spa, a fundamental experience to understand the importance and usefulness of this software solution.
A staged project for planning and scheduling
The project began in 2019 and is divided into three parts: workshop planning management, finished product management and sales dating. The project will be completed with the global planning of the plants through CyberPlan and with the management of complexities related to the production and distribution of materials.
The first part of the project implemented was that relating to the S&OP, and therefore the long-term part of verification and analysis of the forecast side. This implementation allows you to start from customer forecasts and check whether or not Walvoil is able to meet commercial requests.
A subsequent phase saw the insertion of the operational part for all production plants. In it, the planning of semi-finished products has the peculiarity of being centralised and allowing machinery to be planned, while the planning of the finished product follows the feasibility of the order and ensures that orders issued in the workshop are always completely feasible.
Upcoming developments include the dating of sales orders based on production capacity constraints.
Greater visibility and depth of analysis for more accurate results
The greatest benefit is the greater visibility on the data of the production process, which makes information that was previously invisible evident. For example, if a purchase code was late, the sales order involved would be known immediately and accurately. Or you have immediate visibility on which orders have the greatest impact on the load in hours of the machine.
By putting the sales department in communication with the scheduling, CyberPlan shows how the insertion of a new order moves the load, thanks to a histogram relating to the machines and allows cross-analysis throughout the company, going to see how the load of the individual machine varies, following the movement of a customer order.
Thanks to the new APS software, Walvoil‘s analysis capacity is more precise and deeper than in the past. The data used is clean and can be forwarded directly to the sales department, which makes the communication process much more streamlined than in the past.
As for the workshop, there are also evident improvements in material planning, which takes place on almost 200 machining centres.
“There are advantages both from the point of view of speed, time savings, depth of analysis and the sequence in which the material is planned”
Ilaria Casoli – Project Manager – WALVOIL
Once implemented, CyberPlan will support traditional tools in monitoring the service level, with the possibility of making a further step: the comparison of the service level between the requested and confirmed date and between the confirmed date and the actual shipment date. At the moment the cumulative On Time Delivery is 64%, a value that continues to improve and that, at the end of the project, Walvoil expects even higher, thanks to the implementation of the numerous parameters provided by the system.
Find out what you can achieve with an APS
With software for production planning and scheduling you can improve qualitative and quantitative aspects of your production department, but not only. Production planning, or purchasing and sales departments can also benefit. Find out how, in the downloadable brochure.