The Enterchain company, a part of OMEGALLIANCE® group, has successfully completed the project on combining the branches of JSC Arkhbum into a single production planning circuit based on OMP Corrugated and Solid Board System (CSBS) 4.70. Now the processes of 3 sites for production of corrugated cardboard and packaging of one of the leading wood-chemical enterprises in Russia and Eastern Europe, JSC Arkhbum, in the cities of Podolsk, Istra and Voronezh, are managed and planned in an integrated digital solution.
The history of OMP CSBS solution successful implementation began in 2011, when the planning system was commissioned at the Podolsk branch, and then, in 2014, at the Istra branch. Since 2017, the OMP solution has been used for centralized work planning of both JSC Arkhbum Moscow region sites in Podolsk and Istra. In 2018, the OMP system was installed at the LLC Europack site in Voronezh. However, the new site used the OMP solution separately, which certainly brought significant economic benefits, but retained the potential for improvements. In 2019, the JSC Archbum management, with assistance from professional Enterchain consultants team, realized that it was necessary to centralize production planning between sites and synchronize production plans in an integrated solution. The project, implemented by the Enterchain team in February–April 2020, merged the two systems and made it possible to centrally plan the work of 3 production sites in a single OMP system. This OMP implementation project has become the largest in Russia.
A separate unique feature is the possibility to balance load between sites, which provides flexible management of orders execution on time. In addition, the use of a single solution for planning and management of production facilitates performing the following tasks:
- Unification of reporting across all sites
- Using a single ERP system to transfer data to the production system
- Planning of cutting with due regard to feedstock availability at each production site.
- The JSC Archbum sites have already significantly increased production efficiency earlier by using OMP CSBS solution, but the enterprise management decided to move even beyond. On the basis of the results obtained, it is proposed to perform a number of corporate tasks:
- Use of a single specialized industry platform for production planning and management
- Use of mathematical optimization tools to plan and execute cutting
- Balance the load of corrugating units and processing lines (uniform loading of equipment) across 3 sites taking into account the results of load scheduling
- Capacity reservation
- Automated calculation of blanks number at the nodal points of production (inputs of processing lines)
- Synchronization of plans for corrugators, processing lines and conveyor systems across 3 sites taking into account the level of work in progress
- Increase in the reaction rate to events due to the presence of relevant information on the current state of production
- Online monitoring of up to 30 units of production equipment.
“As in any project of that kind, we faced difficulties and non-standard tasks. The high level of JSC Archbum specialists and professional excellence of LLC Enterchain consultants ensured exact setting of tasks and prompt implementation of solutions. So we can say that the project went smoothly,” comments Timofey Yakunin, Project Manager on the customer part. “The preparatory phase of the project played a very important role in the proccess of combining solutions, when the directories and functionality used at different sites were synchronized. Only a few users had to adjust parametric settings in the system after the discrepancies were detected, but in general, the user's work did not change and the migration process for users went seamlessly. With that, a centralized solution for integrated production planning based on OMP CSBS will enable our company to multiply the economic effect from optimization and digitalization of production.”
“The task of centralizing the planning of several production sites was not new for us, but the feature of this project was the migration from different versions of OMP CSBS at each site and the synchronization of regulatory framework,” commented Sergey Smirnov, Project Manager on the Enterchain part. “Our customer and we have experienced seminal cooperation for years and that is why the centralization project took only 3 months. The customer showed high expertise at all levels: management set the goal very clearly, and the project team formulated the tasks and feedback in a consumedly distinct manner based on continued use of the solution. The only thing we needed was to make use of flexibility and adaptability of the OMP CSBS solution to implement the tasks, synchronize directories, modify user interfaces, adapt integration mechanisms with corrugators. Thus, the transition to a centralized solution took place in an extremely short time, without affecting the production rate.”
Following the situation in Russian economy in March–May 2020, the main distinguishing feature of this project was the remote execution format. All interaction between customer's and contractor's experts was conducted in the form of video conferencing and via the tools that enable collaboration. This proved the personnel and platform readiness for today's challenges. The customer was able to promptly organize the work of their production services and interact with the contractor remotely, and the contractor completed all tasks at the highest level without visiting the sites. The OMP CSBS platform made it possible to implement all the design tasks for configuration, administration, migration, and integration. Answers to questions of the solution end users, both at the phase of launching central planning and at the phase of its support, are being provided remotely as swiftly as possible.
