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beyond software – the company has also implemented vehicles for transporting raw materials to machines.“ We have fully automated guided vehicles( AGVs) moving around in the factory. The operator simply pushes the button and an AGV brings the material to the stations. We are investing in more robotics,” he reveals.
Further technological advancements include the recent launch of two critical tools: an in-house developed shopfloor scheduler and a supply chain capacity planning solution. Ruud explains that the scheduler, amongst other things, minimizes changeover times between jobs:“ You need time to change the machine set-up for the next job, but if you pick a logical sequence, you can minimize the amount of changeover time needed, leading to far higher efficiency.” The company’ s new capacity planning tool addresses former challenges.“ In the past, we’ d sometimes run out of capacity and consequently struggle to deliver products on time,” Ruud notes.“ This
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