Advance Workshop optimises Rebar production

Description of the project

The company Rebar+ Pty Ltd.* comprises three production sites located a few hundred kilometers apart. Production consists of cut and bent steel, supplemented by the sale of trade products (sleeves, welded wire mesh, etc.). Volumes are of the order of 800 to 2,500 T per month and per factory, with an average bar diameter of 17.3 mm. Each site is equipped with a cutting bench, bar shears, at least two framing machines, a straightening machine, and an automated forming machine. Transport management is outsourced. Part of the production is sometimes subcontracted depending on the workload and the deadlines imposed by the construction site.

Challenges

The Management wanted to optimize production while maintaining margins. To do this, they planned to regroup all daily manufacturing and organize it by diameter. Subcontractors would therefore become ​​more involved for small batches. Means of communication with subcontractors thus needed to be automated, with delivery deadlines maintained and loading errors reduced.

Solution

The implementation of the solution on the pilot site was carried out over a period of four months and included the following stages:

·    Project management.

·    Order and configuration of the computer and industrial equipment.

·    Installation of the database and configuration of the standard market parameters.

·    Preparation of the machine downloading protocols with connections to the manufacturers.

·    Preparation of the interfaces with connection to the third-party software publisher.

·    Configuration, installation and testing of the Advance Workshop Touchbox.

·    Adaptation of documents (orders, delivery slips, invoices, labels) according to the specifications drawn up with the customer.

·    On-site training of the customer’s coordination team.

Deployment on the other two sites was carried out over a period of two months by the customer’s coordination team, with Advance Workshop project team providing remote support.

This project was brought to completion thanks to the involvement of the Management, far upstream, in defining the requirements. The internal team was mobilized to validate all of the intermediate stages and allow a deployment of the system in strict compliance with the commitments undertaken.

Rebar+ Pty Ltd. has been able to better manage production costs and implement a higher level of service than most of its competitors. Response times are considered good to particularly good by most of its customers.

(*) Company names have been changed