Rapid growth prompted Docile to seek a more robust solution for its PPCP. Simultaneously meeting the demand of foreign-market orders, which had come to represent a very significant volume for the company, while also having to replenish domestic-market stocks amid strong demand and a wide variety of products, was no longer a task suited to be handled in Excel.

This was all the more true given the dynamics of its supply chain processes, with two factories as well as distribution centers in São Paulo and Espírito Santo. With this in mind, Docile assessed the options on the market and found in Opcenter APS software the most robust solution to meet its needs. The implementation consultancy chosen was Neo Engenharia de Produção, the leading player in the market, which already had a significant reputation and experience in the segment.

The project encompassed the Opcenter Advanced Planning solution, for the master production plan with finite capacity, and Opcenter Advanced Scheduling, for detailed production scheduling.

"Given the company's growth, we found ourselves needing to make production management more efficient. We carried out a series of benchmarkings with customers and saw that Siemens' Opcenter is the most complete solution on the market, and we saw NEO as the ideal company to begin this partnership with."— José Lauschner, PPCP Coordinator

In planning, the combined demand of orders and forecasts from the domestic and foreign markets is taken into account, considering the statistical patterns of order intake.

The plan is built to meet a dynamic inventory policy calculated for each distribution center. It takes into account the finite production capacities, the logistics between processes, and the optimization of batch size across the different presentations, so as to make the most of production resources and avoid unnecessary tooling changes. Production orders are generated automatically from Opcenter to TOTVS, with no need for intervention.

Next comes sequencing, in which all the details of each sector of the factory are taken into account. Meeting deadlines while optimizing setups is the great challenge, and it is still necessary to deal with balancing work-in-process inventory, since storage time and resources are limited and variation in the product mix to be produced can shift the production bottleneck. Cleaning, maintenance, and waiting times between operations must also be taken into account so that the schedule becomes feasible and accurate. For example, on the marshmallow lines a minimum resting time is required between extrusion and packaging, a synchronization that is performed automatically by Opcenter APS. Finally, as production is carried out, the reported data is used to update the schedule and allow for very agile rescheduling.

After the implementation of Opcenter APS on the first product lines, significant gains could already be seen, such as a 30% reduction in setup times on the first lines implemented, which increased the factory's competitiveness. The service level was also positively impacted by this project, together with Docile's other internal initiatives, reaching a 10% improvement. The interface with other areas also changed in character, as PPCP supervisor Henrique Isse explains:

"Before, we only used reports and Excel. Today we are able to forecast inventory, know what will be packaged, and when it will arrive at the Distribution Centers."— Henrique Isse, PPCP Supervisor

This visibility into the future inventory that will be made available to the DCs allows sales order management to be optimized, since acceptance and scheduling are no longer conditioned solely on current stock, but also on what will arrive at the units, with quantities and availability dates. This greatly improves the relationship with DOCILE's customers and the service provided to them.

The solutions will soon be made available to more people on the PPCP team to handle the different lines, given the wide variety of SKUs. As next steps, Docile intends to mature its use of the solutions on the more complex lines, as well as enable the business areas to make increasingly agile decisions to support the company's growth, which is quite bold.

"The ability to generate more efficient production plans in an agile way, while gaining visibility into our future scenarios to improve service to our customers, are extremely important competitive factors for Docile's strategy of rapid and sustainable growth."— José Lauschner, PPCP Coordinator