Opcenter (Preactor) APS

Vulcan Industrial Engineering Co Pvt Ltd (VIECL) had its humble beginnings in 1971 manufacturing drilling machine accessories. Over the past 30 years, Vulcan has become a leading Indian provider of standard and customized engineering services and products for core industries including mining, cement, steel and energy. With a turnover currently approximately £22m, the global company with operations located in multiple countries has ambitious plans to increase this fivefold over the next 5 – 7 years.

Vulcan manufactures transmissions for hoist, drag, and swing mechanisms and spares such as racks, rack pinions, bushings, couplings, brakes, rollers, idlers, and frames using forged steel and alloys. Vulcan also specializes in custom-made products and equipment refurbishment.

VIECL works extensively on custom projects which require bespoke routings for each new project. The company also receives castings from a number of different suppliers which in the event of having to reject one can seriously impact the rest of the assembly processes.  Looking to the quantity and variety of components & processes involved in manufacturing, it was difficult to plan the manufacturing schedule. By installing Preactor, VIECL aimed to improve on time delivery, increase machine utilization and forecast a manufacturing plan. Preactor’s “what if” capabilities would enable VIECL to see the impact of each decision.

 

Planning Executive Patel Smith comments, “We were one of the first companies to enquire about Preactor at a very early stage in 2003 when Preactor was launched in India.  Our Director was in touch with Preactor at that time.  However, we were expanding and were waiting for the right time to implement.  We decided to go for Preactor in January 2010 and started implementing SAP ECC 6.0 in July 2010.

“Preactor India has good consultants who demonstrated the capabilities of Preactor using our own data and at once we were convinced that implementing Preactor would give major visibility in the shop floor.”

Preactor which was first implemented and ran as a standalone solution for few months and was then integrated tightly with SAP.  The data flows from SAP to the schedule and will update back to SAP the relevant data.

Planning Manager Mitul Rana adds, “We had a fixed budget for the complete solution including integration and it was implemented as per the plan and within the budget. After implementation we are getting excellent support from Preactor.”

Preactor has enabled VIECL to achieve their main aims:

• Better utilization of machines
• Better Visibility
• Ability to answer customers on expected deliveries of their orders.
• Better co-ordination between departments.

Due to the success of the implementation, VIECL now has plans to expand use of Preactor to their Gear and Drill Divisions.