Integration with existing in-house software, the ability to cope with specialised manufacturing requirements and ease of configuring User-defined Graphical Business Objects (GBO) were amongst the key factors that led Sony Manufacturing Company’s European Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) manufacturing plant to select the TROPOS enterprise resource planning (ERP) software from SSI as the basis for its new management information system.

The plant, which is situated in Bridgend in South Wales, employs 1,500 people in the manufacture of over 8,000 CRTs every day. It also produces over 10,000 deflection yokes, another crucial component of a completed television set, in every 24-hour period. These are supplied to three other Sony facilities in Europe, including nearby Pencoed, plus Malaysia in the Far East.

MIS Manager at Bridgend, Hal Morioka, says that the plant had previously shared a manufacturing management system with the Pencoed site, but that the different requirements of the two operations had made this arrangement increasingly unsatisfactory.

CRT manufacture, he explains, has a more complex material flow than TV assembly and involves well over 300 individual processes. For example, CRT manufacture requires salvage and recycling capability for imperfect units that can nevertheless be disassembled cleaned and reintroduced to the production cycle. Operations at Bridgend also take place on a continuous basis rather than a single shift.

The consequence of the shared system was a lack of visibility over the entire process. In particular the old system, which Hal Morioka describes as a ‘single’ process box’ running on a centralised IBM mainframe machine, could not provide management at Bridgend with details of the costs incurred by different parts of the operation. Nor could it ensure the accuracy of stock-holding information.

“We wanted to be able to see proper unit costs,” says Hal Morioka. “We had reason to suspect that there might be loss making areas in our processes but we didn’t know where they were”. A decision was therefore taken in 1995 to identify and install a completely up to date software system that could provide the Bridgend plant with an autonomous capability to generate all relevant management information in a form appropriate to the site’s specific requirements.

But there was also one particular complicating factor. The new system would have to be integrated with an existing shop floor information system called CMS before Sony committed to the purchase. In contrast to SSI some of the other potential suppliers showed no interest in integrating their product with the in-house system.

The selection process also convinced Sony that the TROPOS software could cope with the Kanban ordering and delivery system it operates for around half of all the components delivered to the plant from its world-wide network of suppliers. In addition Sony was attracted by the support the SDK (Software Developers’ Kit) module within TROPOS would provide for the integration of other company-specific procedures with TROPOS functionality and the development of customised Graphical Business Objects (GBOs).

As such, Sony was confident that the TROPOS system could satisfy not just immediate requirements for ease of flexibility of use but also its medium to long-term strategic objectives that were:

• To improve manufacturing efficiencies in terms of cost control and cost management
• To support a fully integrated supply chain
• To increase data accuracy
• To reduce paperwork, dependence on manually maintained spreadsheets and duplication of data

The beginning of 1996 therefore saw the signing of a £550,000 deal between Sony and SSI involving the supply of TROPOS software, hardware and associated services.

Only six months after the contract was signed, the system, comprising the complete suite of TROPOS modules including Control, Process and Materials Planning, Production Monitoring and Scheduling along with the Coda OAS package for financial management and the Oracle database system was operational. The hardware comprises an HP9000 server linked to a network of over 50 PCs, as well as the interfaces to the CMS system. All the key people across the plant that need information from the system can get simultaneous on-line access to what’s happening - as it happens.

But the sheer speed with which the whole configuration was designed and installed was another vital element. Hal Morioka explains that once the system had been selected the management at Bridgend set a highly challenging six-month time scale to proceed from go-ahead to switch-on.

This required both detailed documentation of the requirements by users, and close co-operation between personnel from Sony and SSI. The overall development time scale involved for the project was, in fact, only about 60 per cent of that a more traditional approach might have required. In this context SSI’s familiarity with the requirements of manufacturing companies was particularly important.

“A reason we chose SSI”, says Hal Morioka, “is that it has an excellent customer base and its strengths lay in manufacturing, rather than its expertise being diluted by working in other vertical markets such as insurance and banking.”

Work to customise various elements of the system through the use of the SDK software proceeded in parallel with the setting up of the overall configuration. Integration of the CMS system in fact formed a major part of the project.

The work supported the recording of manufacturing ‘completions’ through all stages of the process and involved the automation of about 75% of them.

But several other areas of the business were also targeted.

In the planning area, for instance, SDK was used to develop an interactive planning board and the generation of production schedules. These also had to be integrated with existing Microsoft spreadsheets used for analysing and reporting into the TROPOS ERP system.

Besides integration of different functions the work also involved the design and construction of new screen displays that allow information to be displayed in formats defined by Sony.

Commenting on this aspect of the project Sony says that once the basics were understood, SDK proved easy to use. Developing the initial customised GBOs took a few weeks, but then progress became much faster. The company now has over 20 specialist GBOs developed with the aid of SDK.

Sony also reports that the company has found the standard TROPOS modules easy to use. This has proved particularly valuable since the company previously had very little hands-on IT expertise at senior management level.

“As such the whole installation and commissioning process has,” says Hal Morioka, “not just been an ‘IT project’, but has involved considerable operational innovation.”

A short time after the system went live Sony started to notice benefits. “There is already greater visibility in the areas of warehousing and parts control,” says Hal Morioka.

Further ahead the company is looking to exploit the functionality of the TROPOS software to enhance its communications with its customers - in this case other Sony plants - and suppliers. At the moment, for instance, EDI (electronic data interchange) links are used to receive customer orders, but not for communication in the other direction.

This situation will certainly change. “TROPOS can support any form of external communication,” says Hal Morioka. In consequence the company is looking to explore the possibilities offered by direct EDI links between different computer systems and the automatic generation of faxes. This will apply as much to relations with supplier companies as to other Sony plants.

But Sony is fully confident that the investment will achieve its broad, strategic goals. Hal Morioka comments:
“Our main objective is to improve our control over the manufacturing process and this is what SSI delivers by linking its TROPOS business information system with our own legacy shop floor information system, taking us to an open client/server architecture offering a totally integrated management information solution.”