Customer Stories
ICRON, a leading provider of Optimized Decision Making and Supply Chain Optimization software solutions, today announced the go-live of its Capacity Planning solution at Eczacıbaşı Building Products, Turkey’s first and largest producer and exporter of ceramic sanitaryware.
The successful deployment of the Capacity Planning solution at the VitrA Ceramic Sanitaryware Division of Eczacıbaşı Building Products – which also implemented ICRON’s Capacity Planning solution in 2016 at VitrA Tiles, another one of Eczacıbaşı Building Products’ divisions – gives the ceramic sanitaryware manufacturer the capability to optimize its weekly production planning and order promising processes, maximize on-time, in-full (OTIF) delivery performance, and minimize setup times and excess inventory.
Prior to the ICRON Capacity Planning implementation, planners at Eczacıbaşı Building Products were struggling to create feasible production plans and determine accurate due dates for customers – given the high complexity of their large product portfolio and many different production alternatives and supply chain constraints.
With ICRON’s Capacity Planning solution, VitrA Ceramic Sanitaryware can:
- Generate optimized weekly production plans for conventional and compressed sanitaryware products over a 15-week time period, taking into account numerous production alternatives for different SKUs and constraints including machine, workforce, and mold availability and capacity.
- Automatically produce accurate due dates for customer orders.
- Immediately visualize the impact of changes to production plans on order delivery dates – alerting planners and key stakeholders to potential late orders so that they make the right decisions and take the right actions to ensure OTIF delivery for customers.
The solution has already yielded many business benefits, enabling Eczacıbaşı Building Products to:
- Decrease planning cycle times and machine setup times and increase machine speed and output.
- Reduce excess inventory and operational costs.
- Attain end-to-end supply chain visibility and agility.
- Achieve improved capacity utilization, OTIF performance, and customer satisfaction.
Barış Selçuk, ICRON’s Operations Director for Europe, remarked: “ We are proud to announce the go-live of our Capacity Planning solution at VitrA Ceramic Sanitaryware. This is the second solution that has been successfully implemented at Eczacıbaşı Building Products – a testament to the power and flexibility of ICRON’s complete suite of supply chain planning and decision making optimization solutions.”
“With this capacity planning solution, Eczacıbaşı Building Products can make optimized plans and decisions when it comes to their ceramic sanitaryware production operations and order promising – and can dramatically improve efficiency and OTIF performance,” Selçuk added.
Mustafa Altan, Eczacıbaşı Building Products’ Production Planning Manager, commented: " We have successfully implemented our Production Planning Solution, achieving machines capacity optimization and automation of succeeding operations using ICRON products and technologies. We are impressed both on the operational and financial benefits such as delivery rate increases, stock decreases, and workforce savings. In addition, we have gained complete visibility and control over our ceramic sanitaryware manufacturing process – which is incredibly complex as it involves so many different SKUs, machines, molds, and production alternatives. With this new ICRON solution, we can optimize and completely utilize our machine capacity, eliminate manual planning operations, and make and keep reliable due date promises for our customers."
About Eczacıbaşı Building Products
Turkey’s first and largest producer and exporter of ceramic sanitaryware, Eczacıbaşı Building Products began producing VitrA branded ceramic sanitaryware in 1958, Artema faucets in 1983, VitrA bathroom furniture, bathtubs and shower trays in 1991, and Artema bathroom accessories in 1995. The company designs many of these products in-house as well as collaborating with renowned international designers and studios.
Eczacıbaşı Building Products’ plant in Bozüyük, Turkey, one of the world’s largest under one roof, is the first in its industry to receive TS EN 16001 Energy Management System Certification. VitrA is also the first and only brand in Europe to receive a Type-III Environmental Product Declaration for ceramic sanitary ware.
In faucets, Eczacıbaşı Building Products places among the top 10 producers in Europe. Artema is the first and only faucet brand from Turkey to certify virtually all of its models as meeting the A rating of the European Water Label. It is also the first from any industry to receive the Turkish Standards Institute’s Double Star rating, which indicates that products greatly exceed the benchmark for TSE certification.
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