Networked “Baton” Concept Reduces Project Throughput Times
Munich, April 7, 2021: valantic, the fastest-growing IT consulting and software company in Europe, has worked with the Grenzebach Group to implement a location and function-spanning planning solution for networked control of all value-creation processes.
The solution based on valantic’s waySuite significantly improves planning security and control for all participating company areas and locations. Grenzebach is a family-owned company that operates internationally and specializes in systems engineering and automation technology. The Grenzebach Group has companies and branch offices in Germany, Belgium, Greece, Romania, the USA, Brazil, China, India, and Russia.
Grenzebach serves the global markets of the glass and construction materials industries as well as interlogistics with custom-tailored automation solutions. In addition, the company is opening up new areas of application such as friction stir welding, automation of additive production, and digital networking. Grenzebach is one of the technology leaders on its markets. The company maintains production locations in Hamlar, Iași (Romania), Jiashan (China), and Newnan (USA).
Comprehensive integration of all S&OP processes
With valantic’s waySuite, Grenzebach is in a position to plan and control complex international projects and its procurement and production processes across functions and locations. Optimized, synchronized planning with the wayRTS (Real Time Simulation), wayPRO (Project Management), and wayMES (Enterprise Frontend) modules of the waySuite produces critical time, efficiency, and productivity benefits. For example, planners can proactively avoid threatened capacity and dispatch bottlenecks. Furthermore, thanks to the single point of truth approach, planning security increases for all participating functions. Such great project and location-spanning integration of all sales & operations planning processes, from quotation and order receipt on through to production, delivery, installation, and start-up, could hardly have been realized with the old solution.
The project started at the beginning of 2019 with the development of a target structure for the new, networked planning organization, especially multi-plant planning, and the new high-performance supply chain management according to valantic’s best practices. Here, central planning handles the location and function-spanning project and production planning. The scenario technique in waySuite enables the simulation of new, potential projects with regard to dates and capacities, and this in real time. The go-live of the solution, with which the schedules and capacities of customer projects can be planned, was done step by step per location starting in the middle/end of 2020.
With the introduction of valantic’s waySuite, Grenzebach is pursuing the dedicated business goal of optimizing not just the efficiency and productivity of individual areas of the company, but also product throughput in general. Accompanying this was a new, digital mindset on the part of all project participants: The “baton” idea implemented shortened project throughput times. With the restructuring, Grenzebach redistributed the tasks: Central planning now handles project coordination and rough planning; it provides the guardrails for all functions participating in the project. Fine planning is done decentrally in the individual departments.
“We thank valantic for the appreciation and very good cooperation that was palpable in all phases of this very demanding project. The project with Grenzebach demonstrates yet again that with our high-performance waySuite solutions, which have proven their great added value over and over at international, geographically distributed companies, we can produce very high added value” emphasizes Peter Grau, Project Manager and Vice President at valantic. “We are very pleased that we selected valantic as an experienced project partner. All the goals that we set for this project have been achieved together with valantic,” summarizes Moritz Ückert, Vice President Supply Chain at Grenzebach.
About the individual modules of waySuite (excerpt)
wayRTS (Real Time Simulation) is high-performance software that plans and controls production of all a company’s value-creation stages in real time. wayRTS makes planning transparent and gives users the opportunity to intervene easily with planning support that can be automated at will.
The project planning tool wayPRO works with a uniform database and has a bidirectional connection to your ERP system. Thanks to its intuitive operation, wayPRO ensures transparency and security, especially with regard to demanding multi-project planning.
With the business intelligence tool wayKPI, companies get an overview of their whole supply chain’s performance with company-specific KPIs. The direct connection to wayRTS quickly ensures transparency about the degree of implementation of planning specifications.
With the wayOPT module, the waySuite offers a platform for automating and optimizing planning along the entire supply chain. This reduces planning effort, shortens throughput times, and optimizes inventories.
