Siljan Wood Products – Specialization builds profitability
The wood industry is not considered as high profile, but this sector's statistics are spectacular. The range of products involved is vast, from the simple safety match to multi-roomed houses. Specialization has been the secret to profitability, and the Swedish company Siljan Wood Products AB is an excellent example. It offers wooden floors and panels and is the largest producer of solid wood floors in Europe.
Company background
From its base in Mora, Siljan Wood Products AB has been manufacturing solid floors and panelling since the early 1970s. In 1987 the company opened a new planing mill and moved its flooring production to a second unit in Sarna, where the land and facilities were taken over from the Swedish Forest Service.
The two units employ 36 people and turnover is SEK 160 million. "Siljan Wood Products AB is a capital-intensive company, sophisticated, highly productive, with high quality, and with as few employees as possible," explains Sören Larsson, Project and IT Manager, Siljan Wood Products AB.
This philosophy led the firm to choose the IBS supply chain software solution for the wood industry to run its business. Companies like Siljan Wood Products AB cannot run a high-quality sophisticated operation on second-grade software. Market specialization and efficient manufacturing, supply and distribution systems are critical to success.
Good fit for the business
Siljan Wood Products AB and of IBS have similar overall philosophies, the most significant of which is specialization. IBS has selected a number of large, vibrant and progressive industries, concentrating its experience in producing tailor-made software to address the specific needs of those industries. "IBS Wood is a system that caters for the individual needs of the wood and wood products industry and is one of the main reasons why we selected IBS," notes Larsson.
IBS Wood handles all phases of the company's business, including manufacturing, storage, distribution, financial accounting and business intelligence. The solution has been developed over the years in close cooperation with wood industry leaders. IBS Wood helps speed up distribution and warehousing operations and keep inventory at optimum levels, while helping to safeguard the health and safety of Siljan Wood Products AB's staff.
The demand-driven manufacturing module is designed to accommodate modern, pull-oriented production planning processes, helping the company to reduce costs, build revenues and provide full supply chain visibility.
"The implementation of our new system went surprisingly well, mainly due to the IBS consultants' good knowledge of our type of business," notes Larsson.
Keeping up with changing demand Customers require outstanding service regardless of time and place. Information on products, prices and special offers must be instantly available through first-class information services. The wood products market changes rapidly, and constant availability of products, low prices, additional services and frequent deliveries are taken for granted.
Siljan Wood Products AB's customers often change their structure, creating new ideas to improve their business advantage over their competitors in the same marketplace.
The IBS Wood solution includes delivery features that have helped us fulfill orders quickly, minimize errors, cut our leadtimes and raise service levels.
Sören Larsson
Project and IT Manager
Siljan Wood Products AB
Solution and capabilities
The company's old system could not cope with the changing needs of its customers.
With IBS Wood in place, ever-changing requirements are no longer a problem, as the software easily handles these dynamic environments. From customers placing orders to final delivery, processing times are constantly decreasing. "The IBS Wood solution includes delivery features that have helped us fulfill orders quickly, minimize errors, cut our lead-times and raise service levels," comments Larsson.
Lower costs
Siljan Wood Products AB is now able to allocate its precious resources where they are most needed: looking after products, sales and customers. "IBS Wood has helped us decrease stock levels and capital outlay, resulting in the reduction of operating costs but without cutting quality of service," explains Larsson. The handling of goods is more efficient and the company is always able to inform its customers when stock will be delivered. The use of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) communication has also contributed to savings.
Automated manufacturing
The IBS manufacturing software module handles every aspect of production at Siljan Wood Products AB's factory in Sarna, which has an annual planing volume of 700,000 square meters. module handles every aspect of production at Siljan Wood Products AB's factory in Sarna, which has an annual planing volume of 700,000 square meters. Markets include eight European countries and the US. The flooring raw materials come from northern Sweden and a few selected suppliers.
The heart of the factory is a Weinig planer with 10 cutters that rotate at a rate of 30,000 rpm. The high-capacity surface finishing line is the most state-of-the-art in Europe. "With IBS Wood in place we now have a system that automates and optimizes production, Assembly, planning, replenishment and all other processes," says Larsson.
Measuring the results
The IBS Wood module for business intelligence, IBS Analyzer, is particularly useful for Siljan Wood Products AB. This module provides direct access to details and quickly generates reports that cover all of the company's daily operations. The system automatically gathers current data, providing the ability to manipulate and analyze relevant information for full supply chain visibility.
IBS Analyzer enables users at Siljan Wood Products AB to drill down to any level or individual transaction, as well as copy information for presentation as tables, graphs or other formats. "The statistics available with IBS Analyzer are excellent, especially when we can get a glimpse of our business performance at the touch of a button," concludes Larsson.
The long-term partnership between IBS and Siljan Wood Products AB is held together by the glue of synergy. Both companies have vision and expertise that have moved them towards even greater success and profitability.
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