PT. INDONESIA NIKKA CHEMICALS
- Company Profile
Address : Karawang International Industrial City (KIIC) JI.Maligi ⅡLot E-3 Karawang 41361, INDONESIA
Company History
1974 : Established: Manufacture of textile chemical agents
1969 : With the start of foreign investment by the Indonesian government, the Japanese textile industry expanded into Indonesia. Established a factory in Indonesia. Our main customers are apparel-related companies.
Currently, the company provides products not only to Japanese companies but also to local Indonesian companies.
Products are mainly developed at the head office in Japan. The products are mainly developed at the head office in Japan, but are customized for local customers at the factory in Indonesia.
Employees
Approx. 130 people
Japan Head Office
NICCA CHEMICAL CO.,LTD Head Office: 4-23-1 Bunkyo, Fukui City, Fukui Prefecture 910-8670, Japan
https://www.nicca.co.jp/
2. How we came to implement a production scheduler
At the Indonesian plant, we provide textile-related chemical agents (standard products, developed in Japan) customized for local customers. As a result, the company is now able to batch-produce about 600 products. In the past, we had to manually prepare and provide stand-up sheets for each production line equipment.
・Variety of products
・Not always able to dispatch with high production efficiency.
・A lot of time and man-hours to change the production plan.
There were problems like above. Initially we asked an Indonesian SI company to develop a production scheduler from scratch. The company introduced Asprova to us and we decided to implement it.
3. Difficulties in implementation of Asprova
Initially, it took time to set up the Asprova master for reasons such as the large variety of products, the complexity of the processes, and the lack of tact time settings. During the course of the project, the person in charge changed jobs (a problem common to all Southeast Asian countries) and for other reasons, it took six months to make preliminary preparations, but as a result of sufficient preliminary preparations, we were able to start up in a short period of time, eight months from the start of 2020 until full-scale launch. (Normally, it takes an average of one year for a Japanese factory in Southeast Asia to launch the same product.) Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
4. Assumed effects and problems of implementation at now
At now (as of December 1, 2020), total operation has just begun, but the effects of the system’s implementation are as follows
・It can be scheduled in a shorter period of time compared to traditional manual work.
・The system can now be operated by two production planners, a master maintainer and an operator.
(In fact, at Japanese factories in Southeast Asia, other effects of the introduction of the system have been seen, such as shortening lead times, reducing inventories, and improving the rate of on-time delivery, but these effects take six months to a year after the system cutover.)
The current problems are as follows.
・It takes a long time to create a new master. (Isn’t it possible that add-on systems will be provided by implementation partners and will be eliminated in proportion to the level of proficiency?)
・Once the system is in actual operation, new system requirements are created, and these need to be addressed. (Elements that were not expected in the requirements definition stage may be found in the actual operation of the system, but isn’t this a good thing from the perspective of system brush-up?)
5. Future plans
Until now, there has been no digitalization from the perspective of manufacturing site management, but we plan to use the Asprova introduction as a trigger to promote IT for process management (even in Indonesia, the Indonesian government is currently recommending IOT for manufacturing sites, but there are only a few plants that have been able to achieve this).
The factory plans to gradually collect manufacturing results using tablets and other devices at the manufacturing site (for Asprova, an accurate understanding of manufacturing results is essential for rescheduling).
6. Overall system configuration of the current production management system
The Nikka Chemical Group is currently in the process of implementing Asprova in each of its Japanese factories. In addition, the Group is promoting the renewal of its core systems, including its production management system, using ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). The Asprova system at the Indonesian plant is currently being operated independently, but in the future it will probably need to be connected to ERP as a standard system for the entire Nikka Chemical Group (Asprova usually receives part of its master data, manufacturing results, theoretical inventory information, etc. from ERP). Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Future connection with ERP
7. Relationships with implementation partners
The relationship between the customer itself and the local SI company (Batera High Systems Indonesia https://bahtera.jp/) that will support the installation is good. Unlike other office package software, Asprova requires a partner with experience in its implementation. In this regard, Mr. Yamamoto, President of Patera Hi-System Indonesia, not only provided advice and support on the use of Asprova, but also made appropriate proposals, including the provision of add-on systems that take into account the customer’s ease of use and the proposal of an intermediate database in anticipation of future connections with ERP systems. Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
8. What the customer wants from the product manufacturer (Asprova)
“We want master maintenance to be easier.”
Asprova provides functions such as the Asprova BOM (https://www.asprova.jp/products/bom.html) that supports master maintenance, which is the key to continued product operation, but the environment in Southeast Asia is different from that of a Japanese factory. However, the environment in Southeast Asia is different from that of Japanese factories, and it is essential to respond to individual customer requirements and levels.
This is an issue for us as a manufacturer in the future, but this time we were able to achieve simultaneous maintenance of the master database by multiple people through add-on development by our implementation partner. (The Asprova machine was originally developed on the premise of stand-alone operation, and in order to realize the customer’s requirements it was necessary to purchase options such as the Asprova NLS (Network License Server): network authentication server and DS (Data Server): data server (). In order to realize these customer requirements, it will be necessary to purchase options such as the Asprova NLS (Network License Server) and DS (Data Server) (https://www.asprova.jp/products/nls_ds.html).
9. その他
In addition, the customer talked about Asprova training for local personnel in the local language. At the present time we are providing standard Asprova training in Japanese, English and Chinese, as well as utilization seminars and e-learning (https://seminar.asprova.jp/) and other services to customers who have signed annual maintenance contracts. At the present time, we offer standard Asprova training in Japanese, English and Chinese, as well as application seminars and e-learning (https://seminar.asprova.jp/) to customers who have signed annual maintenance contracts, but we are currently asking our local partners to provide support in Indonesian, Thai, Vietnamese and other languages on an individual basis.