Wakefield, UK: 14th October 2009 – Production line stoppages are costly. eleventeenth has deployed a system to help Coca-Cola Enterprises' Wakefield plant, the company's largest in Europe with nine production lines operating on a 24/7/365 basis, to help prevent line stoppages occurring due to the lack of resources and available skills.
The problem facing managers of large workforces, often comprising a proportion of transient or temporary workers, is that having access to knowledge of the skills and training of the whole workforce is simply not possible from memory. As a result it is possible for a shift to experience stoppages or slow working for need of a skillset that exists elsewhere on the line or in the plant. If full visibility of skills and training were available, with a way to juggle and flex the workforce, stoppages and slow working could be reduced or even eliminated, and workforces reduced without affecting production yields. The potential savings are considerable, but existing ERP and HR systems do not offer a workable solution to this problem.
For CCE, this was previously achieved by the management and control of several site-based spreadsheets - these included the recording of: line production requirements; individual attendance against set shift working patterns; and individual skill competency sets. This was a manual input activity which demanded a high level of resource management time and resulted in data task duplication.
Coca-Cola's European Learning and Development Manager, Steve Platt approached eleventeenth after the company was recommended to him, to ask if they could provide a solution. After evaluating the requirements, eleventeenth realised that a system built on their Resource DLM platform would fit the bill.
Steve Platt says, "Coca-Cola Enterprises Wakefield is the largest manufacturing plant for Coke products globally. With nine production lines and a 24/7/365 operation it's a challenge to ensure all lines are fully, and correctly, resourced. The business was managing the line production, shift patterns and staff resourcing manually using spreadsheets, which worked to a point but was far from ideal. Working closely with eleventeenth over a 3-4 month period we replicated all of our manual systems into a modern Resource Planning System that eleventeenth calls Production DLM; the system has already demonstrated a return on investment through better use of management time and has enhanced the overall site awareness of, and communication process regarding, workforce flexibility."
He continued "The RPS (Resource Planning System) has been a huge success and has introduced significant improvements to the running of our operation. I believe we have still not fully utilised the system's full scope and capability. If you are still manually planning resource and training and you are looking to implement modern Lean Enterprise strategies you should contact eleventeenth."
Marcus Dyson, CEO of eleventeenth states, "Production DLM solves a tricky problem for production line environments, and one which is not well addressed by traditional ERP systems. eleventeenth is more responsive and more flexible than traditional ERP providers, and offers a system that can be deployed quickly, and cost effectively and start delivering complete ROI and ongoing savings in a very short space of time. Managing costs is always important, but in the current challenging climate, it's absolutely vital."
eleventeenth has since shown the product to other food production companies and they quickly recognised the potential of the system. Plans are underway for several deployments. Some potential clients quickly identified additional requirements for the system including production plan management, and scheduling of cleaning and statutory requirements, and these modules have been added to the system.
eleventeenth is now seeking partners to develop joint ventures for the sale and marketing of their product in the USA, Australia and other territories.
For more information please call eleventeenth on 08456 441603 or see www.productiondlm.com
About eleventeenth
eleventeenth is a Wakefield based Internet application developer that specialises in asset and resource management solutions. The company provides, among others, catalogue management software to Yorkshire Purchasing, PR asset management to Nintendo and Disney, and resource management software to Coca-Cola and Police Forces across the UK.
Note to editors - eleventeenth should be written in lowercase.
About Coca-Cola Enterprises
Coca-Cola Enterprises is responsible for manufacturing, selling and distributing over 80 different soft drinks products across Great Britain – that’s around 250 million cases every year. In Great Britain Coca-Cola Enterprises employs around 4,500 people and has six manufacturing sites across the country, as well as a number of regional offices and depots.
