Realtime APS Advanced Planning Tool wayRTS improves delivery reliability at motan

motan operations GmbH, an equipment manufacturer for the plastics industry, made improvements at its Isny location with the help of valantic planning, inventory, and supply chain management. Thanks to the introduction of the realtime APS advanced planning & scheduling tool wayRTS (Real Time Simulation), throughput times are much shorter and the company can make delivery promises to customers that are reliably kept.

Transparency across the entire value creation process

Significantly improved delivery capability and reliability

Reduction of safety buffers in inventory

Real-time scenario technology enables informed decisions to prioritize orders

Optimization automatisms reduce planning effort

Key figures and supplier management improved with the wayKPI software module

Edgar Heckelsmüller

Head of the order center at motan operations GmbH

”We can see the success. Transparent, company-wide planning has calmed processes and we have become much faster. The wayRTS planning software enables us to run through different scenarios and make well-founded decisions for prioritizing orders. valantic has also provided us with valuable guidance on how to improve data quality in our existing systems.“

About the motan Group

The motan group, based in Konstanz on Lake Constance, was founded in 1947. A leading supplier for sustainable raw material handling, it is active in the fields of injection molding, blow molding, extrusion, and compounding. The company’s application-oriented product line includes innovative, modular system solutions for storage, drying, and crystallization for the conveying, dosing, and mixing of raw materials for the plastics manufacturing and processing industry. Production happens at various production locations in Germany, India, and China. Products, system solutions, and services are distributed via the motan sales regions. With a current workforce of 550 employees, the company records annual sales of approximately EUR 150 million.

www.motan.com

The initial situation

At motan operations GmbH’s Isny plant, the orders placed by a sales department associated with another division of the company repeatedly led to conflicts over resources and consequently to short-term, unpredictable changes in priorities. In order to be able to react and deliver nonetheless, resource-hungry safety buffers were maintained in inventories along the value chain. This manufacturer of granulate dryers and other systems for the plastics industry sought valantic’s assistance with the aim of improving efficiency and organization, as well as reducing costs.

Better master data, better planning

valantic’s process and IT consultants, working with motan’s project team, analyzed and documented the previous processes and established a target concept. This included a new planning organization with clear responsibilities for customer order processing and the need for transparency about order deadlines and capacities. In addition, capacity planning was supposed to be binding and a clearly structured process developed for cases where priorities need to be shifted. The idea was to introduce wayRTS, part of valantic’s waySuite, as a sales & operations planning (S&OP) solution. The data-leading ERP system at motan is Microsoft Dynamics NAV (Navision). One hurdle in the interaction of these systems: The insufficient quality of the master and transaction data. An important part of the project, which was carried out in parallel with the introduction of the new software and processes, was therefore the correction, maintenance, and expansion of the master data for stored MRP parameters, suppliers, delivery times, and workplaces.

Supplier management via KPIs

Supplier management was also examined as an important part of supply chain management. It is now monitored at motan using the business intelligence tool wayKPI based on uniform, company-relevant key figures. The direct connection to the wayRTS tool quickly ensures transparency about the degree of implementation of planning specifications.

After a project period of just a year and a half, motan’s planning processes are now centralized and transparent and reliable for everyone involved. This has calmed the processes and the company’s adherence to deadlines is exemplary. Throughput times are much shorter, and inventories were reduced significantly.

Follow-up project: Train AI

The automatic generation of backlog clearance and capacitive smoothing by the optimizer in wayRTS simplifies the daily work of everyone involved in production planning. Instead of time-consuming analyses of manual backlog processing and capacitive harmonization, the optimizer suggests solutions that can then be transferred to normal interactive planning in wayRTS. They wanted to take advantage of these benefits at motan, too, and that’s why the supply chain experts at valantic trained the “AI” following the software implementation: optimization goals and priorities were formulated together with the customer and taught to the algorithms for automatic optimization. These can now take over routine tasks.

Daniel Dick Wahlberg

Project manager at valantic

”Thanks to configuration of the automatic optimizer, the software now handles the tedious weighing of complex relationships when capacity or material problems arise – motan is now up-to-date with its intelligent planning systems.“

Your Contact

Anne Wiegert

Senior Manager Marketing & Communications
valantic Supply Chain Excellence

+49 89 578399-0