Development of production planning and monitoring system for Tetra Pak production facility (MS SQL, MS .NET)

Tetra Pak, a world leader in liquid food processing, packaging, and delivery, is the largest industry group in Tetra Laval concern (Sweden). The company has been present in the Russian market since 1959, with head office and technical service center in Moscow and two production sites in the Moscow Region.

System purpose

• Reducing of planning, accounting and monitoring timeframes
• Scalability of production facility for an output growth (including a launch of the second production line)

The system was designed as a vital part of the company’s quality system based on ISO9000 and WCM (World Class Manufacturing) standards.

System functionality

The system functionality encompasses all key divisions of the company involved into order processing: planning department, warehouse, prepress department, production department, and quality assurance department:

• Production planning. Production planning based on sales forecasts, order information, manufacturing capacity load, pre-printing materials readiness and work-in-progress information. Manual/Automated production plan optimization.  Raw materials and goods purchasing (based on sales forecast and order information) and warehouse delivery planning. Production wastes planning.
• Production Process Monitoring. Input - current production capacity load (per orders), manufacturing malfunction (equipment failures, technology breaches, raw materials and goods delivery delays, etc), quality related issues (raw materials, goods and final products). Views and Printouts of plans and reports required for warehouse operation. Production waste accounting. Work-in-progress materials accounting.
• Quality Assurance Process Automation. Production malfunction monitoring (equipment failures, technology breaches, raw materials and goods delivery delays etc). Quality related issues (of raw materials, goods and final products). Production waste.
• Automation of Pre-print Materials Accounting and Planning processes. Planning of design and cliché preparation schedules. Registering events of receiving designs and clichés in accordance with orders. Registering events of correct (incorrect) design and cliché preparation. Registering estimated amount of ink required for printing an order. Periodical registering facts of cliché characteristics consistency (inconsistency) with manufacturing requirements.
• Product Labeling. Intermediate and final products labeling process automation. Product identification. Processing of claims, both internal and external. Transparent docflow related to claim processing. Product tracking: tracing the information on a final product – manufacturing facility, date, raw materials used).
• Reporting. Automated generation of hard and soft copies of Plans and Reports.

Implementation highlights

• On-going production plan updates in accordance with real situation
• Manual/Automated production plan optimization
• Integration with SCALA, a business and finance automation system: production process parameters, such as order fulfillment speed, production waste percentage, etc., are transmitted to the finance accounting system and then used to calculate financial factors and to monitor key performance indicators (KPI) of the company.

Project duration

• 6 months, September - March 2003

Tools and technologies

• Microsoft Visual Studio .NET
• Microsoft SQL Server 2000
• iScala Data Exchange Server
• Crystal Reports 8.5
• Bar code technologies