Success Story: International Metals Company
Working with Perot Systems, part of Dell Services, Pittsburgh-based RTI International Metals utilized SAP® software to improve visibility into key production and financial information, achieving significant operational and strategic benefits.
The Challenge
RTI International Metals, one of the world’s largest producers of titanium, sought to reduce costs by improving visibility to shop floor status. Visibility had been obscured by a variety of systemic inefficiencies, including system delays, incorrect master data and the use of individualized tracking spreadsheets to gather data and manage production processes.
The Solution
Dell Services worked with RTI to implement a global shop floor baseline, enhance existing real-time reporting capabilities, measure overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and provide a production order dashboard using the SAP Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence (MII) Software portion of SAP Perfect Plant.
The project initially focused on improving reporting, including reporting on production order status, work in process, work center capacity and equipment status. Later, the project expanded to include further enhancements, such as part serialization, and to include multiple sites, including a fabrication plant.
The Results
The solution increased timely visibility to shop floor status and other operating metrics. The operational benefits have included:
- Decreased month-end close
- Fewer production process errors
- Increased throughput through improved planning and scheduling
- Increased asset utilization through the use of overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) metrics
- Improved yields and overall efficiency
In addition, RTI has benefited strategically from the real-time visibility provided across the multiple shop floors in the supply chain.
