Automation by means of exception-based planning
Easily organise stocks of paints, stains and other products
200 tonnes of lacquers and stains per day – that is the impressive production capacity of Hesse GmbH & Co. KG. Last year, the company set up a new Advanced Planning System in order to better organise the huge quantity of products, variants and raw materials. The supply chain management software DISKOVER from SCT GmbH is now being used.
Wood is one of the most sustainable materials in the construction sector. With the right surface finish, furniture, doors and parquet are durable and can turn rooms into oases of well-being. Hesse GmbH & Co. KG from Hamm in Westphalia, which is family-run in the 3rd and 4th generation, sees itself as an inspirer that wants to make the world a little more beautiful and worth living in. The company’s approximately 450 employees develop, produce and market lacquers, stains, oils and waxes for innovative interior surfaces. Production takes place exclusively in Germany. With international subsidiaries in Belgium, France, Dubai and the USA as well as joint ventures in India and China, Hesse is represented around the globe. Customers for the intelligent and sustainable coating solutions can be found, for example, in the trade and furniture industries.
Optimise stock levels
Liquids and bulk materials are mainly used as raw materials in production. The finished products are stored in various pack sizes and delivered to customers. In 2023, Hesse launched a project to optimise stock levels. ‘We wanted to optimise stock levels in general,’ says Tobias Kneer from the process innovation team, who led the project at Hesse: ’At the same time, we wanted to increase delivery readiness and achieve the desired delivery readiness.’ In order to achieve these main objectives, planning had to take into account current orders combined with forecasts for future customer requirements. To achieve this, an APS solution had to be found that offered such planning and at the same time enabled a bidirectional exchange of data with the existing ERP system Dynamics 365 Business Central from Microsoft.
The existing scheduling processes, which were often based on external Excel-based solutions, were to be automated wherever possible, and a transparent presentation of the most important key figures was also required. ‘In the end, we decided in favour of the DISKOVER software from SCT, as it offers all the required functionalities,’ explains Tobias Kneer: ’The specialists from the management consultancy Abels & Kemmner supported us during the implementation.’
Ausnahmebasierte Planung und Disposition
The most important change with the introduction of DISKOVER is the exception-based planning and scheduling of all stocks. Employees no longer have to look at all raw material and article stocks individually, but the software automatically indicates when action is required. If, for example, the stock of a raw material is too low to be able to produce the combination of forecast requirements and existing orders, a repeat order is triggered.
Bulk material is planned according to consumptionBut DISKOVER can do even more: it can also take into account peaks in demand that deviate once upwards or downwards from the planned demand, as well as structural breaks caused by a new customer, for example, which permanently and significantly changes a demand. By using the sales forecast module, the sales department is also integrated into the planning process, from the sales item to the raw material.
Bulk material is planned according to consumption
As the raw materials are usually bulk goods or liquids – so-called bulk materials – there are also special features in the planning. For example, the tanks in the various production facilities are planned separately, even if they are filled with the same material. In this way, for example, the fill levels of the individual tanks can be taken into account. There are also different planning areas for variants of the same product in the finished products. For example, containers of 25 kg or 1000 kg of the same product are planned separately as variants. In total, there are only around 400 standard products that are available ready-made in a central warehouse. The majority of products, on the other hand, are filled according to customer and order specifications. The corresponding products are stored as semi-finished bulk materials in tanks, where they are planned separately.
‘The support from the consultants at Abels & Kemmner was very helpful for us during the introduction phase of the new software,’ says Tobias Kneer. During the implementation phase, Hesse realised points that were previously irrelevant. ‘For master data maintenance, for example, we had to enter additional data that was not previously required,’ says Tobias Kneer, citing one example. In the first steps, some raw materials were initially scheduled as pilots via DISKOVER in order to check that the scheduling solution was working satisfactorily. Other products were then gradually added to the system. The project has now been largely completed and parts of the scheduling process have been automated. ‘We have had many positive experiences with the new approach of exception-based planning and scheduling over the past few months,’ says the project manager, summarising his experiences: ’The collaboration with the consultants from Abels & Kemmner during the project was definitely very harmonious.’
Interface back to BI
The data from the planning and scheduling software also provides important information for the business intelligence system at Hesse. DISKOVER calculates additional key figures that were not previously available, such as consumption for various past periods and forecasts for future periods from the next month to the next 18 months. The BI system then prepares these in a user-orientated way and the controlling department can then easily work with this very detailed data.
Tobias Kneer
Process innovation team
