POWER TOOL STREAMLINES PRODUCTION

The task

Automation and standardization of whiteboard meetings - without sacrificing interaction and ownership

Across national borders, factories, and producing units, daily whiteboard meetings are a key task for employees who work in the machinery area of one of Denmark's very large production companies. At the meetings, each individual team ensures that there is control over customer focus, safety, quality, delivery, costs and, not least, employee motivation in their part of the overall production.

The more efficient and streamlined production is, the better the result for the company - it almost goes without saying. Therefore, it was obvious to switch from manual log of these whiteboard meetings to a digital setup, where each individual manager and employee can easily create a comprehensive overview of their part of the production. And where deviations are quickly detected, thereby minimizing the risk of production stoppages and loss of efficiency.

"We wanted better control over the standardization of our reports and data input, so we could make better data-driven decisions through the various layers of the organization," says the company's Senior Manager, who has been responsible for the project.

And the Senior Manager continues that they wanted to "automate and standardize data input, without compromising the interaction and ownership of data on the whiteboards. (…) And then it should be possible to add data manually in a structured way in places where a plant did not yet have access to a standard data source.” exacto has helped solve this important task, which is also part of the company's journey towards a paperless production.

The solution

Efficient, powerful tool with 5,000-9,000 users - the most used BI tool in the company

In close collaboration with the customer, exacto has developed an effective, powerful tool, where users can get an updated overview of the production work in their particular team in just a few seconds. This tool is fully or partially rolled out in the majority of the company's global subsidiaries and is carefully adapted to the level of the organization where it is to be used. With 5,000-9,000 daily users, the BI tool is the most widely used in the company.

The central part of the solution consists of an SQL database, for which all relevant production data is collected directly from the company's various data sources. The database is even linked to user-friendly web-based platforms, such as Power Apps, where users can easily enter and update relevant data from a whiteboard meeting. Power BI is used to present the collected data, which is updated every 30 minutes. This ensures that, for example, key figures and entered action plans are always updated for each individual production unit, and insight and overview are created at several different levels of the organization.

For the company, this means that it is easy and simple to draw reports and quickly form snapshots of a specific situation. With storage of all data in one and the same database, the data validity is top notch. And no matter what level or layer of the organization is looking at production data, the user administration is matched specifically to the individual users' user profiles and needs. From the many end users of the tool, the response, according to the Senior Manager responsible for the project, is that it is "smart, easy and provides a good overview."

The result

Increased ability to make data-driven decisions & 50,000 hours of non-value-added work saved

The development of this powerful tool has, for the company, been one of the largest digitization projects ever, and with significant added value for both the daily users and the management. Globally, up to 50,000 hours of non-value-added work have been removed annually by no longer having to manually keep track of production work - and with the ability to analyze both historical scenarios and obvious current trends, management can make important strategic decisions to optimize their future production apparatus.

To the question of what is the greatest value of the solution, the Senior Manager with responsibility for the project answers precisely: “In addition to the time and transparency saved, I clearly believe that it is our data-validity. The fact that we can centrally manage the standards and KPI calculations; ensure that input is the same from all parts of the organization, which enables us to make much better and faster data-driven decisions.”

Regarding the choice of exacto as a supplier, agility, speed, and dedicated resources are emphasized as the most important keywords: "We wanted to enrol this (the power tool, ed.) at plants as soon as possible, so that we could make a solution based on daily feedback from users. This has of course meant a lot of grey hair at our first plants, which also meant that quick adjustments and focus from the supplier have been key.”, concludes the Senior Manager.