Solutions for industry: smart production planning

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Smart planning and investment strategies enable you to save on production costs and man-hours. A smart factory allows you to explore countless solutions that contribute to a more efficient working environment. One such measure is smart production planning, a solution that enables manufacturing companies to use resources more efficiently and to set up better business processes. Appronto has implemented various smart production solutions for several customers that take in-factory production planning to the next level.

What is smart production planning?

How do you ensure that a product travels as efficiently as possible from the factory to the end customer? Aligning the best possible use of resources with the production process is one way. If these two components of your business interact well, creating a more efficient process becomes a lot easier.

Do you collaborate with many suppliers with whom you also exchange a lot of data? In that case, linking your respective systems will significantly improve and streamline your joint operations. A sophisticated integration layer makes this possible and allows you to respond in a faster, firmer and more flexible way to the changing world around you.

The road to success

But how do you effectively approach the digitalisation of your production processes? Be sure to focus on the following success factors.

  • Get the tooling that allows you to determine the most optimal planning schedules. Such an application allows you to choose start times and record the correct order of tasks. The result is a smooth and natural workflow.
  • An application for smart production planning takes several work-related factors into account. The relationships between workers and machines, the skills of individual workers and the relationship between purchasing and stock are striking examples. The overarching advantage of analysing all these variables is the reduction of changeover times.
  • Create a smart integration layer that connects your business applications with those of your suppliers and buyers.

VDL Nedcar

Appronto has built a comprehensive and fully-functioning software factory for the well-known Dutch car manufacturer VDL. We optimised the existing application landscape and expanded it with a diverse plethora of new applications. We have also trained our own VDL Nedcar software development team in Mendix. Under the guidance of Appronto, this team will eventually form the heart of the VDL Nedcar low-code factory. The main advantage? The company is now able to further digitalise its business and production processes.

Together, we managed to build applications for all the supporting processes (visitor registration, security round and idea box), as well as applications for the production processes. Good examples are the sophisticated planning app for VDL’s 5000 production employees and a smart production solution that digitalises the communication about cars on the production belt. This allows the manufacturer to communicate faster and more accurately and improve the production process.

Pop Vriend Seeds

Pop Vriend Seeds is an independent, specialised seed breeding company in the Netherlands. The company exports vegetable seeds to more than 100 countries around the world. The search for smart digital solutions brought Pop Vriend Seeds in contact with Appronto. Together, the company and Appronto used Mendix technology to develop the Pop app.

The Pop app allows Pop Vriend Seeds to carry out all of its activities, from order to expedition, in a safe and integrated way. The process is almost paperless. This means that the vegetable seeds leave the company in an “even greener” state. The application is built as a layer on top of the ERP system.

Pop Vriend Seeds - Pop-app

Do you want to work with smart production planning, just like VDL Nedcar, Pop Vriend Seeds, Aurum Brothers and Secrid?

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Aurum Brothers

Aurum Brothers is a company that sells high-quality stone jewellery for men. The company mainly wanted to improve its process efficiency. Digitised solutions had to replace traditional Excel sheets. The “seeing is believing” process triggered Aurum Brothers to contact Appronto. “Seeing is believing” means that Appronto carries out part of the project to showcase the many operational and benefits of Mendix and Boomi.

One of the implemented solutions streamlines the production part of Aurum Brothers’ operations. An order comes in via the webshop, is assembled on the factory floor, and is then shipped to the customer. At the touch of a button, the package is registered with the sender and the label gets printed. Digitising this previously manual operation saves the company three full-time equivalents in personnel costs alone.

If you need to integrate multiple systems, just give us a call. Appronto knows how to unlock underlying systems to create more efficient processes. As a recognised partner in the field of integration, we are happy to help you out. In addition to Mendix apps, Aurum Brothers also relies on Boomi integrations. They make use of our NetSuite connector.

Secrid

Secrid, designer and producer of innovative wallets, has built a new supplier portal based on Mendix’s low-code platform. The portal helps Secrid to streamline processes with fifty suppliers and offers transparency in stock and planning. In just 10 years, Secrid has changed from an innovative Dutch start-up to a global organization with 8000 stores in 70 countries.

The new supplier portal that we built with Mendix is ​​essential for Secrid to optimize logistics and production processes and support further growth. Secrid, Appronto and Mendix’s “Secrid Supplier Portal” project was nominated for the Computable Awards 2020 in the “Partner Project” category.