Using IBM Cognos Analytics for A Thermoplastic Manufacturer
This case study focuses on the implementation of IBM Cognos Analytics by Glorious Insights in helping out a leading manufacturer of thermoplastic and metal enclosures. The manufacturer was facing difficulties in the business processes. The complexity of processes and lack of analytics was making it really hard for them to overcome the problems. Check out this case study and find out what happened when Glorious Insights stepped in.
Customer background
A leading thermoplastic and metal enclosures manufacturer uses several components and sub-components to develop their final products. The company was established in 1922 and has been dominating its market domain for many years. It manufactures the enclosures for a variety of industries including telecommunications, water, power, fiber optics, and utility.
Many giants in a wide range of industries rely on the company for the supply of components. For that reason having the right raw material to develop the finished goods is crucial for its smooth operations. The company teamed up with Glorious Insights to deploy IBM’s planning and analytics solutions to ensure better raw material planning and quality services to its customers.
Challenges
The company serves many dominant broadband, telecom, and utility companies with the metal and thermoplastic enclosures. It is the key to these client companies for their smooth operations and ability to deliver quality service to their customers. To ensure quality, the company has deployed state-of-the-art technology in its manufacturing units.
It does not just assemble but starts from the raw materials and manufactures from scratch. Advanced technologies like industrial robots are used for the precise production of finished goods.
The manufacturing process of the company is complex. Every order may require the production of several components and subcomponents. Numerous smaller parts are often needed as raw material to develop these components.
The company creates and maintains a detailed manual list of these raw materials using spreadsheets. The planning team spends many hours to match this list with the inventory to ensure the ample availability of the raw material. Unfortunately, the process takes a significant amount of time and is prone to mistakes. This can result in delays in the process and missed deadlines.
Glorious Insights took up the challenge to provide a smarter system for inventory planning to meet the project requirements. This system would provide precise information that leads to more accurate planning and implementation.
Solution
The Glorious Insights worked closely with the company to assess the available options against the requirements. It turned out that the company is already using IBM analytics tools for some of its business processes, in very limited capacity though. The analysis and evaluation revealed that by upgrading these existing solutions, an effective solution can be drawn that will fulfill all the requirements. Finally, IBM Cognos Analytics and IBM Planning Analytics Express emerged as the most precise solution that would deliver exactly what the company wants.
- Functional aspect
The solution system could generate sophisticated reports to simplify the planning complexities and provide a clearer view. The company bifurcated its products as raw material, in-progress, and finished goods. The IBM Cognos Analytics Solution generates elaborated reports that could link the raw material components to more than 9000 finished goods.
- Technical aspect
The company was already working with some IBM solutions in a limited capacity. The new system that included IBM Cognos Analytics and IBM Planning Analytics Express could be deployed with greater ease. The new system was installed as an upgrade to the existing one.
Initially, the IBM solution targeted the metal manufacturing jobs as these are the most complicated projects in respect of planning. The system generates raw material reports for each project and results in accurate planning and efficient production.
Results
The new system delivered by the Glorious Insight provided a deeper vision and precise judgment of the raw material required for a project. The company is now able to save plenty of time on planning and reporting workflow. The smarter system has almost eradicated the possibility of errors and guarantees an on-time compilation of projects.
