eQVista remote monitoring and erpMobile solutions for Cement manufacturing company
Customer Information
The customer is a big conglomerate owning many cement plants located at different geographical areas. They manufacture various grades of cement and have many warehouses for stocking and dispatching to their distributors. Each plant is automated with programmable logic control systems from vendors like Siemens, Allen Bradley, ABB, Honeywell and others.
Problems Faced
The senior management of the company wanted to have a remote monitoring solution that will enable them to access the live production data using their Windows Mobile Pocket PC devices and smart phones (like BlackBerry, iPhones, Android and Nokia). They also wanted to have the real time visibility of inventories available at their warehouses.
Currently they have SAP R/3 ERP system that manages the sales and distribution functions. But a paper based system is used for delivering the dispatch details to the warehouses. Each warehouse will get a fax message in the morning containing the dispatches to be made for that day. Accordingly the warehouse supervisor will load cement bags in the trucks and dispatch them. The warehouse supervisory will note down the truck license plate number, details of bags loaded, the driver name etc in paper and fax them back to the corporate office. This paper based system had many errors and the reports were always delayed. The truck drivers were unpredictable and causing additional delays. The company wanted to streamline the sales and distribution activities using mobile technology.
Solution Offered
Special middleware was developed for each plant. This middleware has an OPC client communicating with the Control System available at that plant and transfers the production and other important data to the eQVista system. eQVista system collects the live production data from individual plants and consolidate them and provide the information to the Pocket PC devices and Smart Phone clients. Important alarm conditions from the plant as well as key maintenance data are also made available.
Sales and Distribution process has been mobilized using the erpMobile solution. The dispatch data originates from the SAP R/3 ERP system. Operators in every warehouse and distribution centers have PDA / smart phone devices and mobile printers. When the operator performs a logon in the mobile application, the system communicates with the ERP system and directly downloads the dispatch data meant for that warehouse / distribution center. The operator accordingly loads the truck or railway wagon and enter the data in the handheld device. Dispatch notes are created using the mobile printer. System also captures parameters like truck arrival time, departure time etc. As soon as truck leaves the facility, the system sends SMS message to the their customers about the delivery. The inventory data is updated automatically.
The cement distributors and sales agents can send their orders by sending SMS messages from their cell phones. The system is fully integrated with SAP R/3. The sales agents and distributors have visibility of inventory across all warehouses. By monitoring the consumption trends of different grades of cements, the plant management can modify the production schedules and minimise build-up of excess inventory.
About Indusmation
Our Principle has been a leader in offering advanced mobile enterprise software solutions using barcode/RFID technologies since 2001. Indusmation specializes in offering solutions for applications such as Manufacturing, Supply Chain Management, Asset Tracking, Maintenance Management, Healthcare, Warehousing, Distribution etc. Our mobile solutions are supported in Windows Mobile devices as well as Smart Phone platforms such as BlackBerry, Android, iPhones, Nokia and others. Indusmation team has excellent experience in offering industry specific mobile solutions to process industries like Cement, Steel, Paper, Oil-Gas, Power and Mining. Our solutions help to extend the ERP right to the smart phones and empower users to work more efficiently and help companies to improve the bottom lines. Indusmation offers a full spectrum of Consulting Services, Software Development/Customization, Hardware Configuration, System Integration, Implementation Services, Training, Post Implementation support and Maintenance services. For additional information please contact at info@indumation.com visit our website at www.indusmation.com for additional information.