Making Resource and Project Planning More Effective

Large global footprint

DISA® Industries develops, manufactures, installs and services a complete range of metal casting production solutions for the ferrous and non-ferrous foundry industries. A long-standing tradition of innovation and accumulating knowledge from all over the world has consolidated DISA’s global footprint and made the company a preferred partner for foundries worldwide.

In parallel to DISA’s strong global presence as part of the Norican Group with 2,000 employees in 50 countries on 5 continents and a customer base of more than 10,000 companies in 100 countries – DISA also has strong Danish roots – remaining committed to a 125-year tradition of Danish engineering and world-class expertise.

The Norican Group is an international production technology business with multiple technology families. The application of Norican technologies is in the production and treatment of metallic parts. For more than a century, Norican’s machinery and process solutions have stood the test of time, and it is our ambition to continue to be a leader and innovator – in other words, keep shaping the industries we choose to serve.

World-class engineering is what DISA delivers for foundries of all sizes who seek to expand their operations – whether their expansion is happening in the Americas, Europe, India, China or The Middle East, wherever they are in the world we will support them. DISA has a long-standing tradition of innovation, reliability and commitment to providing its customers with end-to-end complete foundry solutions – both vertical and horizontal moulding. DISA has the broadest industry offering supporting our customers with latest available technology, technical expertise, parts, services and guidance to produce the lowest cost per casting.

Planning and Execution of Engineering Projects and tasks

The engineering department at DISA provides a wide range of different services and tasks within software, electrical, mechanical development and documentation. The portfolio development spans from long complex machine development, Customer Customizations, production support, Customer support and general upgrades of obsolete parts and systems. Thousands of tasks carried out by dedicated specialists. This makes prioritization and resource allocation very complex. So complex that it was difficult to maintain an overview and prioritize, without a centralized planning system.

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“We have many planning systems in different excel spreadsheets without links, and without a consolidated overview. If We can have our Engineering planning synchronized and constantly updated in one consolidated system with a clear overview, then our efficiency and speed will improve, and our ability to prioritize correct will also improve.”

Jimmy Sørensen

Vice President Engineering

Room for improvement

In 2020, after a careful review, it was decided to implement the resource and portfolio tool MPI from Marstrand, which, together with Microsoft Dynamics AX, the ERP system, would constitute the overall management platform for the engineering area.

Integrated planning of resources, projects, tasks and timing

Marstrand and its Planning Intelligence platform was efficiently implemented through a series of workshops with key users and consultants which covered data integration, flexible graphical user interfaces and workflows brought together focusing on:

Resource management avoiding bottlenecks and idle time respecting each person’s capacity and competences. Workflows for decentralized vacation declaration and management approval
Masterplan prioritization, where each customer project’s progress is followed up in relation to milestones/status.
Time Tracking and final notification of completed tasks
Various resource reports for management and employees

DISA has come a long way

Status after phase 1 implementation of MPI

Data import from AX. Customer projects, internal development projects and service tasks with a general ledger account structure are transferred to the MPI database. Project numbers are synchronized (AX is the master). These are large and complex networks.
G/L account numbers are transferred to MPI in a separate table to control correct references if activities are added to MPI, via templates where underlying WBS levels inherit G/L account no.
Enrichment of projects with templates. In MPI, the part that relates to Engineering, development tasks as well as incidents e.g. errors and services is identified. Customer projects and support tasks are selected and relevant templates with WBS structures are inserted.
Capacity registration. Employees register their capacity (working hours, illness, holidays) subsequently approved by management (built in workflow).
Booking of resources for tasks; customer and internal development projects. First, from a central team with the establishment of a framework for each task. Then the employee outlines the task in detail on the time axis, this also applies to the creation of logs with subtasks that arise along the way.

Dual Gantt and dashboards. Resource constraints and progress are visible to management and project managers.
Time registration. Engineering hours are recorded daily in MPI and automatically transferred to AX once a week
Overview tasks. Action board list that provides an overview of all ongoing tasks, status, and who they are allocated to.
Dashboards are available for capacity planning and for follow-up on allocation of hours, etc. Available on the web for easy access from outside and for non-MPI users.
The LEAN master plan is implemented in MPI – for the individual project and across projects.

Global Service tasks for maintenance of DISA’s more than 2000 installed plants in the world, including selection of service technicians considering skills, capacity and travel.

Results

The initial problems have largely been resolved, with improved capacity and activity planning now in place. There is better identification of timing and capacity limitations, and alternative solutions have been developed. Quality in timing has improved for both internal and external stakeholders.

The organization can now assess resources and projects weeks in advance, a significant improvement, though the focus remains on continuous performance enhancement. The engineering department has made substantial progress, linking tasks to overall planning. Collaboration has led to key improvements in performance and the introduction of new tools has been well-received, driving further enhancements in the MPI system.