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Broner to Provide Supply Chain Planning & Scheduling System for Gerdau AEB

05/18/2011 - Gerdau Group has selected Broner Metals Solutions to provide an enterprise-wide, multi-plant, supply chain planning & scheduling capability for the four steel plants of Gerdau Aços Especiais Brasil.

Gerdau Group has selected Broner Metals Solutions to provide an enterprise-wide, multi-plant, supply chain planning & scheduling capability for the four steel plants of Gerdau Aços Especiais Brasil (Gerdau AEB).  
 
The Broner solution will allow Gerdau to make centralised decisions for allocation of inventory and plant capacity to orders, which is particularly important given the significant product overlap between the Gerdau AEB’s geographically separated plants. Selection of the appropriate plant will be based on geographic location, available finished or semi-finished inventory, lead time (considering the rolling campaign schedules at each site) and cost, in order to provide the best solution for each customer.
 
The Supply Chain solutions also include specialized supply chain planning and scheduling solutions that will help to optimize the schedule for each site and provide visibility of order fulfilment progress to the centralized customer services team.
 
In co-operation with Gerdau, the Broner solution will ensure that all of the plants’ orders and constrained capacities are taken into account in a single business operation. The system will allow the team responsible for order acceptance to more easily query the capacity plan, obtain a realistic due date, and have the confidence that it will be achieved.
 
The new solution will enable Gerdau AEB to:
 
·         Reduce Sales lead-times by managing campaigns at each site
·         Improve Due Date promising and On-Time delivery
·         Automate the scheduling process, thus increasing efficiency and productivity and reducing lead times
·         Increase agility to respond to changes in business or production priorities
 
The Broner solution is a combination of the Broner Production Planner, Material Planner and Production Scheduler modules:
 
·         Broner Production Planner performs a multi-plant “through scheduling” function that optimizes and balances the flow of material through the supply chain, considering actual and forecast orders, inventories, equipment capacity, rolling campaigns, order grouping and process restrictions. It will consider all possible routes and interdependencies between the plants, to create a forecast of equipment utilization, inventories and on-time delivery based on actual and planned demand.
·         The Broner Material Planner module is an automatic tool that decides which pieces should be used for which manufacturing orders, and what pieces need to be made when there is insufficient inventory to fully allocate the open orders. Allocation rules ensure the best compromise between yield and on-time delivery is achieved, while minimising finished and in-process inventory, thus reducing inventory costs.
·         Once orders have been planned for production at a particular plant, the Broner Production Scheduler automatically creates the schedules for the rolling mill and the finishing lines in one process, taking into account the flow of material over time, and production constraints. 
 
 “The single integrated solution will allow Gerdau to better manage the four separate plants as a single entity,” said Broner Chief Executive David Mushin. “A key part of the solution is for Broner to provide improved integration with SAP using a standardised interface based on modern message technology powered by TIBCO.”
 
Broner and Gerdau are building together on a strong relationship, started in 1995 when the first Broner Solution for Gerdau was installed in the Gerdau Piratini plant. Gerdau has since invested significantly in the business and systems integration of their Special Steels plants (Pindamonhangaba, Sorocaba, and Mogi das Cruzes).
 
Gerdau is a leading producer of long steel in the Americas and one of the largest suppliers of special long steel in the world. It has over 40,000 employees and an industrial presence in 14 countries with operations in the Americas, Europe, and Asia, which together represent an installed capacity of over 25 million tonnes of steel per year. It is the largest recycler in Latin America and around the world it transforms millions of tonnes of scrap into steel every year.
 
Broner Metals Solutions specializes exclusively in delivering metals-specific MES, planning, scheduling and supply chain solutions to the Steel and Aluminium industries. Broner Metals Solutions provides packaged, configurable products that are designed specifically to manage the complexities and variabilities of Metals production. The Broner Metals Solutions team has 30 years experience in improving the performance of metals production worldwide. Broner solutions are widely used by some of the world’s top steel companies, such as: ArcelorMittal; Gerdau Group; JFE; Nippon Steel; Severstal, Tata Steel; TMK; ThyssenKrupp Steel and Usiminas.
 
Broner Metals Solutions is part of Hyperion Systems Engineering Ltd.