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 InterfaceFLOR Australia, with its manufacturing plant in Picton, New South Wales, specializes in the design, manufacture and supply of carpet tiles for commercial use. It is part of Interface Inc., of Atlanta, USA, a worldwide leader in the production of environmentally-responsible modular floor coverings and other textiles. They invented the concept of the carpet tile nearly 50 years ago, and have been systematically developing it ever since. Throughout the company’s history, they have successfully combined style, innovation and practicality together with, since 1994, a clear vision of becoming not only sustainable but also restorative through their ‘Mission Zero promise’ of using less of the earth’s natural resources.
The company had been growing at about 25% per year for the last five years and with a complex manufacturing process catering for custom designs, InterfaceFLOR Australia realized that efficient scheduling was a key requirement to enable them to maximize production and quote realistic delivery dates for their customers.
Steve Speakman is Planning and Scheduling Manager. “We use an ERP system called CMS and were trying to maintain two large spread sheets for scheduling. One was a schedule that was sorted by machines near the start of the production process and by order due date, and the other was trying to maintain available raw material. I was the only person who had the product and business knowledge to maintain these spreadsheets but the increasing volume of orders made it an almost impossible task. It used to take me at least 24 hours to answer an order inquiry from a prospective customer and that was without having real confidence in the promise we made.”
The Carpet Tile manufacturing process at InterfaceFLOR involves 5 Key Sub Processes:
- Yarn preparation
- Beaming
- Tufting
- Pre Coat
- Backing
After an order is completed through this process the carpet still needs to pass a number of testing procedures before being released to the warehouse. Some products go through additional processes; Re-rolling, On Grid.
 Steve again. “Scheduling in our factory is a fairly complex process considering the many possible routes, different manufacturing times considering the selected machines at each step and of course the ever increasing production volumes. I was pushing our management to find a solution. I even offered to pay for it if it didn’t work!”
Arthur Chantler is the IT Manager. “We started to look around for a suitable system and it came down to a short list of three, SAP APO, Matrikon and Preactor. Preactor had more of the required functions and outputs as standard without add-ons, for example the required scheduling algorithms and reports.” At this point they contacted Dinesh Shah of Supply Chain Business Solutions (SCBS) who provide Preactor expertise in Australia. “It was important to us that there was local support available. Our first meeting with Dinesh was in January 2006 and the following month he demonstrated Preactor running with our data” continued Arthur, “this showed us that Preactor had more history/experience in providing scheduling solutions than the other vendors and their willingness to put a lot of effort into supplying a customized configuration and providing the support we needed during evaluation was a critical factor in us finally selecting Preactor over the others.”
InterfaceFLOR and Supply Chain Business Solutions started the implementation project in May that year and the system went live in two stages in July and September. There were a number of key elements that needed to be taken into account when scheduling orders. Firstly there was a requirement for Dyelot control, only one lot of all key materials can be used in fulfilling one customer order. Secondly the selection of Tufting machines was important. Some of the Tufting Machines were setup and optimized for a certain product range. Each product had a preferred Tufter and 2 or 3 alternate ones each with different process speeds. Changeover times between products were significant so grouping of like products to minimize changeovers without compromising delivery dates was a key issue. There was also a minimum time between certain operation steps.
All this is needed to be taken into account in generating an optimized schedule as well as sequencing a single order promise. Steve revealed the main challenges in implementing the new system. “Prior to implementing Preactor, the factory used to dictate the output. There was much skepticism that a computer system could schedule a complex routing process. We needed to ‘sell’ the advantages to our staff. There is now a large degree of acceptance.
 Senior management support was crucial to the successful outcome. A project manager was appointed, an additional scheduling resource was made available and IT resources were provided as and when required as part of a team that also included Dinesh and staff from Simulation Modelling Services, the Preactor Network Partner for Australia and New Zealand. Together the team was very motivated, results driven and had the necessary business expertise and very clear objectives to get the solution completed to the required specification and on time.
The scheduling process now starts with firm orders for the next 10 days, current stock and purchase information together with any new product information being imported from the ERP system. A schedule is then generated using a Minimize total Changeover time as its goal. Beyond this timeframe a mixture of Forward and Backward loading is used to schedule the remaining orders. Orders that are predicted to be at risk or late are then reviewed and appropriate corrective action taken. Work-To-lists for each machine are then prepared and sent to Production each week; however plans beyond the firm window are updated each day.
When the planner is not using the master scheduling system it is switched to ‘Order Promise Mode’. Preactor Viewers are used by customer service staff and an assistant scheduler to send enquiries from key customers to the schedule and get a promised delivery date without the planner’s interaction. Real orders are then matched against previous order promises. Orders are then removed from the schedule when the daily download from ERP indicates that the last operation has been completed.
And the Benefits? With Preactor InterfaceFLOR Australia has been able to improve process efficiencies to 120% and by using an order promise viewer they now have the ability to have a number of ‘production schedulers’ that spreads the increasing workload. At a sales level, in extreme circumstances, they can now expedite / change the priority of an order to meet an urgent requirement and have an immediate view of how that change would affect other orders. Although they may not always be able to meet customer requested dates, customers can be given reliable delivery dates before they place their orders.
Increased efficiency and reliable deliveries has increased throughput by around 25%. Now sometimes they have to use overtime in bottleneck areas, but they can identify and focus on them easily with Preactor. The Scheduler now drives production and hence orders are produced as per customer and company priorities. Having the visibility to see into the future, on-time delivery performance has now substantially improved with late orders now a thing of the past.
And the future? Steve Speakman would like to close the loop between Preactor and ERP and roll out shop floor data capture using Preactor viewers. In addition he would like to use Preactor for long term capacity planning based on forecast demand.
The last word from Steve. “We would not have survived without Preactor; we are extremely pleased that we chose Preactor and implemented it when we did. On top of providing individual schedules / work to lists for every process it is also servicing a number of key areas in our business such as the ability to run order inquiries and get back to customers quickly”.
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