Fueling solutions provider achieves cycle time reduction, minimizes transactional costs with ERP system
El Segundo, CA — December 8, 2004 — Glovia International, a subsidiary of Fujitsu and a provider of extended enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions, announced today that OPW Fueling Components is using glovia.com to achieve operational benefits from lean manufacturing strategies.
OPW is a global leader in fueling solutions, offering a complete line of fueling products and services. The company has been pursuing the lean manufacturing strategies of continuous improvement, eliminating waste and increasing customer responsiveness since the mid-1990s when it began using Glovia's ERP solution.
OPW said it initially realized that an ERP system would help streamline its operations by providing the information needed to control processes, coordinate enterprise-wide activities, monitor quality and measure improvements as effectively as possible.
In regards specifically to OPW's lean initiatives, glovia.com is currently used to record costs and material usage information, which measures the effectiveness of the OPW's improvements. OPW's production is pull-driven, with Kanban directing the flow of work on the plant floor from one operation to another.
"Glovia's ERP solution provides us a means of making sure that what's supposed to be happening in regard to our lean execution is actually happening down on the plant floor. It makes sure all the 'T's get crossed and all the 'I's get dotted," stated Tom Ciepichal, vice president of operations for OPW.
The combination of lean controls automatically synched with transactions in glovia.com have reduced OPW's transactional costs. "We are moving toward a paperless transaction process, which will continue to decrease our transaction costs, reduce a significant amount of time and further improve our cycle time, which is critical in responding to our customers," continued Ciepichal. "When you look at the course of these lean initiatives, we have seen a 79 percent reduction in cycle time from when we first started with lean to where we are now."
OPW is now in the process of migrating to the current version of glovia.com to further support its lean strategies and company operations. The new solution puts OPW closer to its suppliers and customers by providing bar code technology and improving the performance and visibility of its complex supply chain, which spans multiple products and production facilities. "We reviewed 20 or so other solutions and felt that Glovia's was the strongest and would provide us the best results," Ciepichal said.
The current version also offers a consignment inventory function that provides Kanban-based replenishment with OPW's suppliers without having to create multiple purchase orders. Bar-coding integration with glovia.com starts the backflushing of material use and labor costs so that when OPW ships finished product, the backflushing, paperless invoicing and payment process with suppliers all begin.