Lean , Smart & Simple!

Kanban Production Scheduling at

GEDIA Spain

GEDIA develops and manufactures car body press parts andwelding components for the automotive industry. GEDIAemploys more than 2000 employees worldwide.

The GEDIA factory in Spain (near Barcelona) is one of fiveproduction facilities. The shop-floor area in Spain includes alot of production machines like huge presses as well asmanual and automatic welding processes.

The team of GEDIA Spain was convinced from the beginningthat a real PULL system will bring enormous benefits againstthe classic production planning and scheduling processes.Although the team had less experience in handling a Kanbansystem, the motivation of the team was huge to realize PULL.

Since the very beginning of the project the team recognizesthat a pure manual Kanban system would be difficult tohandle because of high number of parts and multipleproduction steps. So GEDIA searched on the market for asuitable e-Kanban system to support the Kanban processesfrom the beginning in an optimal way.GEDIA decided to use the Integrated Kanban System(IKS) of manufactus, because the system offers the bestfunctionalities to support the production scheduling process.

Due to the fact that the success of implementing a completePULL system was not 100% clear, manufactus offered anextensive pilot project to gurantee the expected benefits.

Lean , Smart & Simple!

IKS Case Study

GEDIASpain

manufactus GmbHTheresienstrasse 882319 StarnbergGermanyTel.: +49 8151 - 90 93 40Fax: +49 8151 - 90 93 24Email: contact@manufactus.comwww.manufactus.com

"The opportunity to use the IKS systemduring our Kanban Pilot Project was theperfect solution for GEDIA", explained Mr.Wendt, Logistics Manager of the factory inSpain. "This offered us the chance toevaluate the new PULL processes and totest the software without any risksregarding the investment."

The Kanban project started end of the year2009 at the plant of GEDIA GebrüderDingerkus GmbH to evaluate the benefitsof a PULL driven scheduling processsupported by the IKS system.

The objective of the project was toguarantee that a complete PULL systemwas the best solution for the factory inSpain but also that such processes can beused at other plants of the GEDIA group inthe future and that the expected benefitsand savings can be reached.

Especially the dynamic scheduling ofKanban production orders via IKS KanbanBoard was required to manage the hugeamount of Kanban cards at the shop-floorin a stable way.

"By using a manual Kanban schedulingprocess it would be necessary that we areplacing huge manual Kanban boardsdirectly at the shop-floor; but this was notpossible in our production environment",explained Mr. David Martin, ProductionManager in Spain. "Additionally the risk oflost Kanban cards was not acceptable."

Due to the fact that GEDIA has to deliver insmall specific customer containers, but theproduction lot-sizes at the existing pressingmachines are still high (although the setuptimes have been reduced), the number ofrequired Kanbans is also very high for singleitem numbers.

The IKS e-Kanban Board allows thevisualization of all Kanban orders directly atthe shop-floor in real-time. Additionally theelectronic Kanban Board shows the priorityof the Kanban orders for each singlemachine. The Kanban cards are displayedonly on the screen of the board. When theproduction of the items is started, the newKanban cards will be printed again by theoperator.Such a Kanban system enables dynamicproduction scheduling processes based onreal PULL signals. This new way of handlingproduction orders has resulted in explicitsavings and improvements against theexisting planning and scheduling processes.

"We have reached our objective to visualizeall Kanban orders directly at the machine inreal-time. The operators know always whatmust be produced next and take the rightdecisions", told us Mr. Marco Nebot, whowas responsible for the implementation andoptimization of the new processes.

"Our first goal is to reach 100% of materialavailablility for the welding machinesdownstream. The IKS Kanban Boardsupports our employees in their decisions",adds Mr. Wendt. L

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Also one external supplier has beenlinked to the Kanban system at the firstproject phase.

Raw material which will be surfaced by thesupplier as well as final surfaced partswhich are delivered by the supplier toGEDIA will be managed via Kanban.The new supplier process has beenintegrated into the complete supply-chainprocess without any problems.

The following savings andimprovements have been reached duringthe Kanban pilot project:

Reduction of inventory for press partsabout 30%

Reduction of inventory for welding partsabout 40%

Increasement of material availability(dramatic less missing parts)

Reduction of required floor-space (veryimportant because of the size of theparts)

Creation of a very high visualizationabout current inventory and Kanbanorders

Strong reduction of required time andeffort for the planning and schedulingdepartment

Set up of standard processes based onreal consumption (real PULL system)

Conclusion

"The Kanban pilot project has shown thata complete PULL system is possible alsofor a very production intensiveenvironment", explained Mr. Martin thepositive results.

"Without the support of theelectronic Kanban system such ascheduling process would be verydifficult to handle or nearlyimpossible. We are very satisfied withthe easy way to handle the IKS systemand with the advanced functionalities ofthe software. Additionally IKS helps us toestablish standard process for the Kanbansystem", told Mr. Wendt.

The future

After GEDIA Spain realized the positiveeffects of a PULL system by using the IKSsystem, also other factories in thecompany group are interested in usingsuch kind of efficient e-Kanban processesto improve their business.

Also the Spanish team plans the extensionof the new production planning system foradditional products and business areas.

"We are sure that this is the best way forthe company and we will move forwardthis way" Mr. David Martin told clearly."The benefits are very clear and the IKSinvestment has a real short ROI" clarifiedMr. Wendt at the end of the project."We have made a lot helpful experiencesand now we are also able to help otherGEDIA sites to get the same success".

Additional informationen you will findunder

www.gedia.com

www.manufactus.com