VW optimiser improves utilisation and flexibility

Volkswagen Group in Spain has implemented Ilog’s optimisation software both to offer customers more configurable cars and to improve its production planning and ssequencing. New systems have been implemented by integrator Gedas Iberia at two plants: Seat Martorell and VW Navarra, which produce 2,000 and 1,200 cars a day, respectively. Prior to the system, planning was manual, based on a custom-built solution. Using the new system, VW and its subsidiary Seat now expect to fulfill demand for customised cars, and to boost sales. They says they are better able to optimise assembly line resources; they also eliminate excess inventory because the system ensures the plants only stock parts based on current orders. And VW has also been able to use its existing client server and Oracle server environment to achieve the improvements. Production scheduling itself has been reduced from a one and-a-half hour job to just 15 minutes, while production planning for the next day now takes half a day instead of the full day previously necessary. Beyond that, at the VW Navarra plant, the firm uses also uses the new system for car sequencing, reducing the time needed from six hours to a couple of minutes. Ilog’s real time optimiser enables VW to meet both planning and sequencing-specific time constraints, while also handling incidents, events and changing requirements, creating new plans in real time.