Latexco “We support your dreams”
As a Belgian family business Latexco is a worldwide top player in “innovative bedding solutions”. A team of 600 employees works daily on Latexco's mission: to realize a world in which people can dream and enjoy a happy, active and healthy life. A good night's sleep makes people happier and healthier.
Today’s mission (‘We support your dreams’) moves away from process industry. It entails a complex sequence of various production steps, each with its own specific logic and capacity constraints.
Latexco wants to continue to fulfill its “We support your dreams” promise today and tomorrow. To guarantee this promise, the company invested heavily in further optimizing its production processes.
Working with data from various unintegrated systems, combined with the individual experience of planning employees to arrive at a sound production planning, was no longer feasible.
An investment in Advanced Planning & Scheduling (APS) was necessary.
Latexco has evolved enormously in its sixty years of existence. The production process of the early years with the production of basic Latex mattresses, was based on the principles of the process industry. These principles no longer work. Today’s mission (‘We support your dreams’) moves away from process industry. It entails a complex sequence of various production steps, each with its own specific logic and capacity constraints.
New investments were required to steer these processes in the right direction. This translated into an upgrade of the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application, and an investment in an additional APS solution.
Let’s take the production of an assembled mattress.
This consists, for example, of a latex spring core surrounded by foam layers or a latex casing, a cover and packaging. All according to customer specific instructions. Its production consists of several successive steps.
Raw materials and semi-finished products flow through various production steps, often even from one production site to another a few kilometers apart, as is the case in Belgium (Tielt). Trucks transport mattress cores and intermediate stocks between various nearby production halls.
To the question of 'How to further optimize this complex process', one goal was paramount from the start: Delivery reliability. Making one consistent, feasible plan across European sites, in order to be able to meet all requests for on-time delivery, and with the shortest possible lead times. That was the ultimate aim, not cost minimization or profit optimization.
“Mentor and Men meant for us a mentor,
an experienced compagnon de route, a sparring
partner who skillfully guided us through this
process”, Lieven Vandendriessche, Latexco’s CEO
Taking into account all factors as availability of raw materials, deployment of human resources and machine capacity, the Latexco team wanted above all to ensure consistent order confirmations for its customers.
The choice fell on an APS application with simulation options. This investment offered Latexco the opportunity to take into account finite capacity in its production planning in terms of availability of raw materials, production employees and machines (about seventy five).
The chosen APS solution is an extension of the Microsoft Dynamics ERP solution. Microsoft Dynamics is defined as the leading transactional system and is the central manager of the master data.
Mentor and Men guided Latexco from the very beginning till today. Together with Latexo Mentor and Men defined the requirements for APS, drafted the Request For Proposal, and guided Latexo during the vendor selection process, as well as the negotiations with the final chosen partner.
“We could count on specific expertise, the methodological, pragmatic and professional approach of the Mentor and Men consultants of for the implementation of the Microsoft Dynamics extensions, as well as the APS solution itself and the analyses and solving of integration problems between the different systems,” says Jo Van Hoorde, IT Manager of Latexco.
“This transition has brought significant changes to many of our people across our company. Think of new ways of working, different roles and even different responsibilities. Mentor and Men meant for us a mentor, an experienced compagnon de route, a sparring partner who skillfully guided us through this process. We have made huge progress”, says Lieven Vandendriessche, Latexco’s CEO.
“In a next phase, we aim to have the data helping us in making fundamental management decisions in Supply Chain and Operations (S&OP), were we will use 'what-if scenarios and simulation exercises”, adds Lieven Vandendriessche.
In a next article we will look in more detail at the fascinating, sometimes difficult and ultimately successful trajectory from planning needs analysis till using the APS application and what changes it brings for the Latexco people. Another great story in the loyal partnership between Latexco and Mentor and Men.
