German business software solutions provider reduces product delivery time for manufacturer
Bad Homburg, Germany — January 8, 2004 — proALPHA Software AG, a German provider of business software solutions for medium-sized manufacturing and trade enterprises, said it selected ILOG optimization components for its new proALPHA Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) solution.
proALPHA said that by enabling real-time resource planning with ILOG Solver and ILOG Scheduler it can work with its customers to increase resource utilization and ensure on-time product delivery in complex production environments.
Prior to the upgraded solution, resource planning for proALPHA's customers was less accurate and could not be accomplished in real-time. Consequently, resource balancing was performed manually. This lack of automated planning led to considerable weaknesses in meeting the supply chain's key performance indicators (KPIs), and in meeting customer delivery schedule requirements.
proALPHA APS said its customers could now tailor planning according to their specific needs. They can also plan new orders and make changes to existing orders without impacting the entire production flow.
WOLF Werkzeugtechnologie, a German cutting tools manufacturer, is a pilot customer of the new ILOG-powered proALPHA APS. For WOLF, reduced delivery time is the most critical competitive advantage.
The manufacturer is using proALPHA APS to respond with precise deadlines to customer order requirements. Wolf said it uses the proALPHA solution to simulate production options by analyzing the impact of specific deadlines on the overall production, including related costs. The manufacturer can then commit to its customers with deadlines that respect its own production and costs constraints.
Frank Stenshorn, factory manager at WOLF, said, "Thanks to this tool, we can accept more orders without having to hire more staff or purchase more machinery. It is a low-cost investment that increases our capacity utilization. We were already good beforehand; now I'm expecting our productivity to increase five to ten percent." Stenshorn said his company also expects the project to pay off in less than a year.
