Customer Overview
Customer is an Indian company from Kozhikode district of Kerala which is engaged in the manufacture and marketing of footwear. It is considered to be one of the biggest in the organized footwear sectors. The company had achieved a prominent position in the footwear market of India. The main markets, which are Kerala, Tamilnadu and Karnataka.
Before Us
Since implernentaton of the plant, they were relying on Microsoft Excel base VBA application for all the processes including production and inventory management. Relying more on this created a notable GAP between the production plans and pctual production, they had no much knowledge about actual production output and also they had no accurate calculation about inventory, they had no transaction-wise reports to differentiate between the semi finished goods and final product cartons and to know how much actually they stock, Also they had no control on the Transfer of product cartons between their own depo's.
Objective
The objective was simple ie to serialize the semi finished goods and finishedproduct in both carton level and product level there by able to track actual production figures and inventory. Also the need for defining a production strategy that meets their factory standards was also inevitable, also there was requirement to track the transfer of cartons within depots, all this will lead to the ultimate target, To achieve production automation and efficiency.
"Need for defining a production strategy that meets factory standards was inevitable"
Challenges
We had few challenges put before us in this proposal, in which foremost was to design the application to cope up with their existing production strategy. Factory had conveyor machines which operate continuously, so we had to keep up the pace in production in our processes also or else whole production had to be paused. Then they asked for provision to add the already produced stock to our system, since they had enormous amount of finished carton in stock physically. They had godowns and depos at remote locations which is not connected by any means, so Enabling product transfer within depos Without a centralized back end was a greater challenge than expected. Above all, presenting a fresh and new system to users and training them in short period was also contesting need.
Solutions
We had several discussions with the client before proceeding with the initial project plan, in which we properly understood what was their vision about the system. We also had a number of or site visit during the planning phase, so that we can understand the production strategy they were following, During that we understood the need of process design which assure the production speed and smooth flow, The process was planned to be simple at the production stage, so that users can simultaneously carry out the operations on the conveyor as well as the software system, scanning process of finished product was staged to provide users absolutely no burden and in no hurry to which ensured smooth flow of production. Old stock addition was also included in simple manner so that any data entry operator can add the existingcartons to our system with ease. whole piocess was split into two phase of Production a rid Packing where Printing labels and Storage Scans were carried out simultaneously without any discontinuities. Scanning was integrated with the conveyor of the machine at both production and packing to provide automation to the Process by eliminating time and man power required for manual Scanning of each entities. PC with our application in multiple Nodes with Scanners Worked in layers running both processes to provide IV ultitasking at its best without a centralized database system, the linking and transfer of multiple depots was a far dream, yet we proposed a simple yet promising solution to enable. At the time of despatch, the packages are scanned and stored in database also into another file which will be then send to the receiving location. The despatch file will be uploaded at the receiving end and then packaged are scanned and validated. All reports required for them including the transaction wise production reports, packing reports, inventory reports and transfer reports were made available. Training for users were conducted in different levels in vvhich Stallion Systems Support Team was on site to deliver instructionsfor using the application.
"Presenting a fresh and new systems to users and training the in short period was also Contesting need"
Result
Within a short period, client went on to achieve a robust production plan with negligible manual involvement which awarded them complete production automation. The new system was presented to all users which they found user friendly than previous application which was limited to minimum users. All the finished products were serialized with printed barcode labels so that they can track each packet and production figures easily. Packing and storage was also made easier than ever. Stock maintenance department was more efficientthat they can track and trace the complete stock in each depos. Provision for old stock entry was accepted as they finished adding ail the previous productions within a week. Each transfer within depos were recorded with traceability, Production time was also reduced to minimum. Any user in the plant was easily adapted to the new system which was designed to be simple and user friendly. At initial stage there were some down rides but developers was present at the implementation site to provide support and ensure minimum discontinuities in the production flow, within no time, client went to achieve production efficiency and stability which forced them to extend our application from 1 factory and 1 depot in Initial stage to more than 10 factories and a number of depots.
Words of Witness
"We were In search of an production strategy which provides complete automation of the plant. But the challenge was that it should be adaptive to our production plan. Users also demanded a usable system. So we went for Stallion Systems, after the implementation, there were very minimum discontinuities and it ensured smooth production workflow and efficiency. We are also delighted about the after support which Stallion Systems continue to provide even after months of implementation" - said Mr. Nile, Assistant Manager (Operations)
In short words of Mr. Musthafa; Manager (IT) - "I am very delighted about the result, every thing was built to specs. We had few issues along the way, but Stallion Team was very quick to respond. In long run, we had been very satisfied about the System."