In the Tikhvin car-building plant digital control by production based on Infor ERP LN is created

2019: Creation of digital control by production based on Infor ERP LN

On October 16, 2019 it became known that at the Tikhvin car-building plant digital control by production based on Infor ERP LN is created.

Implementation of the ERP system of Infor LN started in 2011 at a stage of construction of the Tikhvin car-building plant (TVSZ) with rail car assembly production and further was expanded on foundry. The enterprise was faced by a task to create a modern management system for the large industrial platform with the technology processes combining elements of process, discrete and flow line production with the high level of automation.

Cell of the robotic module Kuka. Tikhvin car-building plant

The company uses the ERP system of Infor LN in which more than 400 people at the same time work.

For October, 2019 information system NPK OVK on the basis of Infor LN, in addition to TVSZ, covers the plant on release of Tikhvinkhimmash tank cars, production of specialized Tikhvinspetsmash cars and also workshop on production of component parts from high-strength cast iron, instrumental and raskroyny procurement productions.

The common decision is implemented using abilities to manage by multilink structure of Infor LN Multisite company and allows to integrate information flows of the NPK OVK car-building enterprises in a uniform financial and logistic circuit with the centralized multi-level planning and the independent centers of collecting of cost value. The project solution of complex industrial automation of NPK OVK includes Infor LN ERP system, the integration Infor ION platform, a data collection system of Infor Barcode and analytics of production processes in Infor BI. NPK OVK implemented projects on implementation of Infor LN with active participation of the long-term partner – IPL Consulting companies.

The production management system of Infor LN of the OVK railway holding totals more than 2 thousand users. At the enterprises the network from more than 150 mobile terminals of data collection for operational information input in points of its emergence is unrolled. Daily in a system more than one thousand production orders come to the end, more than 10 thousand lines of warehouse transactions are processed. Planning of tasks is performed on the basis of actual data, and the report on results of execution becomes available within several minutes.

Within the project the automatic management system was developed and implemented by quality of foundry production. An ERP system provides business growth support, in particular, in questions of fast setting on production of the appearing models of products and ensuring production volume.

Assembly line of tanks. Tikhvinkhimmash

The effective tool was necessary for us for management of difficult production with the deep level of technology repartition. By means of Infor LN ERP system we managed to create the modern management system covering a circuit of automation of production and logistic processes". told Vladislav Masenkov, the development director of IT[1]

2011: Implementation of Infor ERP LN

Tikhvin car-building plant started implementation of the information management system resources of the enterprise ERP LN. The companies act as consultants of the project IPL and GMCS.

Expectations

System implementation of ERP at a construction stage, will allow to create in the company - the Tikhvin car-building plant, an effective enterprise management system, its divisions and the interacting organizations.

The complete solution of a system will provide support of business processes in all divisions of the new car-building plant, including production, sale, purchases, finance, inventory management, logistics and after-sale service, completely implementing modern standards of management of the enterprises of mechanical engineering.

Feature of the implemented information system constructed on the innovation service-oriented architecture is comprehensive production management with support of logistics of products. Support by the system of the concept of lean production will allow to provide the high performance and product quality.

Opinions

"Implementation of the advanced information systems takes place at the same time with construction of the plant, and reflects our strategy for creation of effective business", – the chief executive of Tikhvin Car-building Plant Ltd, Oleg Menshikov says.

Within the annual INFOR EMEA Channel Partner Conference conference which took place in October, 2011 in Lisbon' 2011 the implementation project of the Infor ERP LN system at the Tikhvin car-building plant is recognized by the winner in a "innovation project of year" nomination in EMEA region (Europe, the Middle East and Africa). The honorary reward was presented to the Russian partner of Infor, the executing this project, IPL companies.

The ERP system implementation project at the Tikhvin car-building plant is mentioned by the international experts for the high level of the organization of process of the implementation which is based on Infor SIM methodology (Simulation Implementation Method is the Method of successive approximation) and also the advanced technologies used during the project. In addition to the information management system implementation of the management program for corporate performance (Corporate Performance Management) and also the integration software of Infor ION goes resources of the enterprise on the Tikhvin VSZ. Thanks to professional work of specialists of the enterprise and consultants of the project, basic processes of management of engineering data, supply and stocks are already brought into commercial operation.

The head of the Russian representative office of Infor Martynov Dmitry said that "within this project are used as the existing versions of building block solutions, and the latest integration developments, for example, of Infor ION which allow to integrate different applications of the customer into a uniform circuit. The project, certainly, became sign for the market of Russia in general, and shows to engineering enterprises all advantages of use of specialized industry solutions".

"The implementation project of the ERP system reflects innovation of all technologies and products of car-building production in Tikhvin. Our recommendations get a response from the management of the enterprise which is aimed to build the information system which is most corresponding to the leading world practices", – the director of consulting of IPL company Zhdanov Victor says.

"Recognition at the international level of our plant by the winner is an honorary reward and confirmation that we on a right way on creation of modern and effective information and operating environment of the enterprise. Further implementation of high-performance technologies and solutions in all business processes is aimed finally, at creation of the leading enterprise in the vysokonkurentny market of transport mechanical engineering", – the chief executive of the Tikhvin car-building plant Oleg Menshikov noted.

The Infor company transferred in the spring of 2012 production of the Tikhvin car-building plant (TVSZ Ltd) to automated management by means of system implementation of Infor10 ERP Enterprise (LN).

The solution developed especially for support of difficult production processes of mechanical engineering will be used by Infor10 ERP Enterprise (LN) for ensuring management in real time in all divisions of TVSZ Ltd, including production, sale, purchases, finance, inventory management, logistics and after-sale service.

Besides, thanks to the implementing solution Infor10 ION which is the platform for unification and standardization of interaction and management of actions between the products Infor and third-party applications TVSZ Ltd will be able integrating to create the implemented Infor10 Barcode and Infor10 Corporate Performance Management (PM 10) more end-to-end informatsioony system for maintenance of the growing production. Infor 10 Barcode will provide online information input on all main production and logistic operations of the plant, and Infor10 CPM will allow to simplify and accelerate processes of collecting and data analysis.

During creation of the unified information system at the Tikhvin car-building plant Infor IPL LLC works jointly with the partner. IPL has to the rich experience and examination in the implementing solutions Infor.

After the end of implementation TVSZ Ltd will have the modern IT-system integrating high-performance rail car assembly and foundry production within uniform processes. The management of the enterprise will always have more detailed information for adoption of important solutions in real time with bigger confidence.

"Thrifty" ERP for the innovation cars

The main directions of development of management systems on industrial enterprises became implementation of the systems of management of quality/business (SMK/SMB) with the corresponding process model and standardization, implementation of "lean production" (LEAN) and implementation of ERP systems recently. And in it we match a vector of development of management systems for industrial enterprises in the world. But here, as stated, "business in nuances". At us the independent service is responsible for each direction and developments take place in parallel realities which "inhabitants" just do not see each other. And if SMK-and LEAN processes are still integrated, then everything, as for implementation of information systems, it appears outside this activity.^[2]

To that there are explanations. In the classical Russian edition of the book of James Vumek "Lean production" we repeatedly meet the skeptical relation to MRP/ERP systems along with stories how implementation of "lean production" allowed this or that company to refuse a MRP system. And this idea repeats in many speeches of theorists of LEAN. And the companies which are known as well for the most successful implementations of ERP systems are given as a successful example of implementation of LEAN. For example, in the division of the Boeing civilian airliners which is the leader in implementation of LEAN in aircraft industry, this project was executed in parallel with implementation of the ERP system of Infor LN in which the majority of LEAN tools, such as electronic KANBAN, assembly synchronization, providing Just-In-Sequence was implemented. And the first-ever "pipeline" production of airplanes is controlled with the help to specially developed functionality of Assembly Control (assembly production) in Infor LN.

Unfortunately, at us in Russia often happens in a different way. When I asked IT heads of one of the aircraft manufacturing enterprises in which in parallel with implementation of ERP actively there is implementation of LEAN, about how they jointly work, I was answered shortly: "In any way". Everyone cooks in the problems, and at the same time the implementation project of ERP loses serious PR-support, and the LEAN project instead of using ready tools in ERP, also Excel analogs thinks out their paper. And integration of processes of implementation of ERP systems in production and logistics and LEAN can give big synergy effect.

It is necessary to tell several words about a situation with implementation of ERP solutions in Russia. The fact that LEAN consultants do not perceive specialists in ERP as allies probably follows from the history of practical activities on implementation of ERP in our country. For years of development of the Russian market this term was devaluated — first of all because of the long-term and very consecutive activity directed to an exception of the corresponding abbreviation of letter P (Planning) and also because of mass assignment of "brand" of ERP to the different domestic accounting systems. If the concept Financial Management System is widespread in the world, then we have all this ERP. And the bulk of projects is considered successful if the inventory control and management of finance are organized. About planning and furthermore and logistics almost nobody speaks about operational production management. So it is quite logical that in this situation of a command, LEAN which are engaged in implementation, do not see the allies in the ERP projects.

Proceeding from everything the etogoena wanted to tell about the project in which LEAN and ERP are integrated and work jointly. It is about the Tikhvin car-building plant.

When forming approaches to creation of the integrated management system heads of TVSZ were based that SMK/SMB, LEAN and ERP cannot become the only tool for creation of a management system. In itself are usually bulky and bureaucratical SMK/SMB and place emphasis on processes, but at the same time it is not clear how to reach their perfection. ERP separately is an automation of nonexistent processes. And LEAN is the methodology of the movement to perfection focused on production and cannot unambiguously characterize the enterprise for partners, there is no uniform assessment of level of a maturity of processes. At the same time at SMK/SMB, LEAN and ERP much in common — customer focus, orientation to continuous improvement of processes, standardization.

Based on these principles approach which can quite be described the following formula was developed:

the IRIS standard (SMK  /  SMB for railway mechanical engineering) + LEAN + Infor LN (the ERP system of TVSZ) = THAT + AS (effective processes) + CHEM (effective tools)

In the course of implementation of Infor LN on production and in logistics before the uniform implementation team including the staff of directorate of the ERP TVSZ project, functional managers and specialists of TVSZ, consultants of IPL Consulting company there was a task to provide implementation of the following principles and the LEAN tools:

• fight against the activity which is not creating added value, failure from "national traditions";
• thrifty design — use of the advanced approaches of automotive industry;
• the schedule system pulling (pull);
• creation of flow line production on all possible sections;
• Just-In-Time, Just-In-Sequence in logistics;
• inline assembly.

Let's itemize that managed to be reached using integrated approach.

1. Thrifty design using the advanced approaches of automotive industry

Historically in practice of the Russian mechanical engineering there was a number of the problems with management of structure of a product (BOM — Bill of Materials) caused by stagnancy of the ESKD standards. I will list them:

• any difference as a part of BOM leads to emergence of new model (modification);
• each modification generates a new tree of products, adding of a new option in a product doubles the number of modifications;
• mastering of modification requires to issue technology documentation again;
• in the production schedule and sales a large number of modifications results in complexity of management.

All this is caused by the fact that during this period when the whole world actively moved towards adoption of the specifications providing release of the configured products in Russia standards remained in the status characteristic of a situation of the 70th years when not the opinion of the consumer, but orientation to the maximum release of one product was the dominating factor.

When implementing the ERP project we found the way out consisting in transition to modular BOM (a basic configuration plus use of options).

The expert of IPL Consulting who together with engineering services of the customer developed a number of solutions on transition to modular BOM was involved to the solution of organizational and methodical questions. In the context of business of TVSZ the principle of modularity describes the car as the product configured under the order. The BOM components (modules, nodes) either are standard, or are put only when choosing a certain option. At introduction of a new option (for example, hatches from stronger steel grades) the engineering module is added and contacts property, and its mastering requires rerelease of the technical documentation only for the corresponding module.

As a result considerably volumes of engineering changes, design documentation, work of technologists decreased and planning became simpler.

2. Thrifty accounting: use of opportunities of Infor LN for decrease in accounting costs

Traditional Russian accounting requires big storage costs and document handling. It and signatures on each document for movement in any task, both storage of paper documents, and of course their accounting.

TVSZ implemented the solution on the basis of a combination of ERP and LEAN using the following principles:

• the KANBAN cards, route charts, coupons are applied to support of the moving documents printed from ERP;
• all transactions are reflected in the ERP system;
• accounting documents for the purposes of accounting are printed is consolidated on workshop (one on all materials of workshop) on a periodic basis;
• technologies of barcoding are most widely used.

Thus, the plant is not engaged in the activity which is not creating the cost (signing, transfer, document storage). And taking into account last modifications in the accounting legislation for us an opportunity at all to refuse paper documents opens.

3. Synchronization and ordering of flows in welding and assembly production

The specifics of production of TVSZ consist in big complexity of processes. On one assembly line there can be at the same time different models of cars, and the structure of assembly production (welding, coloring, assembly of cars) is very difficult.

At the same time there are accurate requirements of business that the management system should provide minimization of buffer stocks, readjustments and decrease in number of intermediate warehouses.

As the tool allowing to implement these requirements the module Assembly Control (assembly production) in Infor LN is used. The same which uses also Boeing.

In Infor LN assembly lines are built as a flow of single products and means of a system carry out synchronization of lines. And for ensuring efficiency of information workers and foremen carry out completion of production operations to Infor ERP from mobile terminals.

4. Lean production — Just-In-Time

For ensuring production with materials and components the whole LEAN tool kit, implemented in Infor LN is used. It is electronic KANBAN (for constantly used components and materials), TPOP (maintenance of a stock taking into account requirement of future periods, in fact automatic electronic KANBAN of variable volume), electronic Call-Off (the order of materials the master directly to the line by means of ERP). Initiation of material transfers and components is automatic on the basis of calculation in a system upon completion of transactions (TROR) or via the mobile terminal ERP (KANBAN and Call-Off).

In general experience of TVSZ demonstrates that being engaged in implementation of LEAN, you should not neglect ERP systems with which synergy allows to achieve good results. To the contrary, if you implement an ERP system, then for achievement of successful results it is necessary to involve in process of supporters of LEAN, if necessary being submerged in improvement of operational processes.

Notes