Hendricks Industries
ProMark has given us a large improvement of both productivity and data quality
“Two years ago we abolished individual piecework and gathered all production in self-managing teams with a shared bonus scheme. However, this required far more exact reporting of time consumpion on the individual job than previously, and we acquired ProMark for this purpose. The two initiatives have together resulted in not much short of a revolution, especially with regard to data quality and transparency of production time consumption to the benefit of management, production planners and others.”
So says Ole Dinesen, production manager at Roug A/S (now Hendricks Industries), which is Denmark’s leading producer of wind turbine towers and steel tanks for petrol stations, etc.
Roug is a company in the iron and metal business which – as many other Danish companies – is under a lot of pressure due to competition from low pay countries. But through focus on productivity and quality over the last couple of years, they have succeeded in improving their competitive strength considerably. And here production groups, a new bonus scheme and ProMark have each contributed substantially, explains Ole Dinesen:
“Prior to acquiring ProMark all hourly paid work and piecework was reported on paper, where employees – often almost illegibly – wrote their hours and job numbers and handed them to the foremen who in turn would enter them into our Aspect/4 ERP system. This was a primitive way of doing things far below the level required of the new payroll system.
In addition, we suffered a lack of precision relative to estimates and costings. But this is now completely settled. Now all time consumption is registered electronically on the 20 terminals in the production plant, and it is now done with a precision down to minutes on every job and employee, instead of half hour precision as was the standard previously. The figures reported are therefore far more accurate and credible than before, and with the use of ProMark's reporting functions they are presented in a clear and easy manner.”
Focus on time usage
The result is a long range of advantages, both immediate and on longer term, says Ole Dinesen:
”The most obvious effect has been that we now measure time usage very precisely. We knew that there was some indirect time spent, for instance on training, troubleshooting and fault remediation, cleaning, etc, but we had no idea how bad it was. ProMark statistics showed that in the worst case this could amount to as much as 18 per cent. The statistics did not only show us where things were going wrong, they also constituted a clear basis for deciding where we needed to act to reduce the figure. We have now reduced this indirect time considerably, and we expect further reductions.”
"The first and extremely noticeable effect of the new bonus scheme and the implementation of ProMark was an increase in productivity of 10 per cent. And ProMark has become an important tool in our daily operations and has been an essential precondition for being able to reduce the number of foremen from 7 to 2."
Better basis for decisions
A second benefit related not just to the price estimates in new offers but also relative to profitability calculations after production, explains Ole Dinesen. “In a wide variety of ways, ProMark has provided management with a far better data basis when decisions are to be made. We can now be much more sure than we could before where we earn money, and we can avoid making quotes on which we would actually lose money.”
The satisfaction with ProMark is also due to the fact that it works impeccably and has done so since the first production day in March 2003, adds Ole Dinesen:
”When we chose ProMark, it was actually because it was the only data collection system which could integrate so closely with Aspect/4 as we demanded, with data exchange both ways. So in fact, it really wasn't a question of choice. But the whole course of events after selecting ProMark has been exemplary. The project only lasted two months, and it only cost 55,000 €. Our consultants from Mark Information have been extremely competent. They were fully aware of what this was about, and we have received the kind of support we needed all along.”
“Thus implementing ProMark has been a resounding success; we have harvested the most succulent fruit first, but there is still a lot of smaller fruit left for the picking, and this we are in the process of doing.” Ole Dinesen, production manager at Roug A/S says in conclusion.
Time and job registration at Roug A/S
All in all, they have 20 terminals for time and job registration at Roug A/S. All 110 employees in production have an ID card with bar code and are given a job card plus a description of each single work task. The job card has been printed from Roug's ERP system, Aspect/4, and also carries a bar code.
When the employee starts on a job, both bar codes are read – from ID card and job card – with the terminal's bar code reader, and they select the time type, e.g. set-up or production, on the touch screen. Once the job is finished, they follow the same procedure indicating a code for job finished. So ProMark has registered both the job, the employee, and start and stop time.
In ProMark all Roug’s attendance profiles etc. have been created so that ProMark can calculate the payroll basis for the salary module in Aspect/4. There is thus data exchange both ways between Aspect/4 and ProMark, and thereby a close integration. On the terminals, the employees can also enter their absence such as holiday etc.
Roug A/S is a high-tech, internationally oriented company with 180 employees designing and producing tanks for all purposes, such as petrol stations and for oil burners. They also produce towers for wind turbines and other large, tubular items. Every year they process more than 25,000 tons of steel with thickness of plate up to 100 millimeters.
Roug A/S, established by Erik Roug in 1959, is located in the outskirts of Herning on an area of 400,000 square metres close to Herning Exhibition center.
The crucial key word at Roug A/S is ’team work’ where all parties co-operate across their demarcations with the common goal of creating optimum solutions for their customers.
Roug A/S is now called Hendricks Industries.
http://www.hendricks-industries.com/
Published February 2, 2007
