SMEs in the supply chain of plasticmetal processing

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SMEs in the supply chain of plastic/metal
processing

• Some needs, best practices and ideas from ASCAMM
  Foundation
• Ricard Jiménez
• Manager - Sectoral ICT Solutions

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ASCAMM
duality

• Technology Centre
• private non-profit organisation
• giving support to all the agents in the plastic
  and metal transforming supply chain
• training
• technology transfer
• services
• RD

• SMEs Association
• 200 Catalan toolmakers
• (tool mould, die...)
• involved in higher geographical responsibilities
• Spanish FEAMM
• European ISTMA-Europe

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ASCAMM
... in Spain, technology centres are the lost
link between public research and industry
PROBLEM HOLDERS
TC
PROBLEM SOLVERS
We are well positioned for monitoring the RTD
capabilities addressing the problems to the right
solvers.
We are well positioned for detecting, capturing,
modelling... most of the problems and improvement
opportunities of a big amount/variety of SMEs.
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NEEDS

• The NEEDS of SMEs come from (holistic)
  constraints
• market pressure (minimum time-to-market, maximum
  quality, minimum costs...)
• technology (availability of the best and
  up-to-date knowledge and infrastructure, tailored
  non-standard solutions...)
• socio-cultural (confidence and trust in the
  Internet...)
• public policies ...
• Some years ago, all these factors were
  opportunities for our small companies but now
  they are necessities for surviving.

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NEEDS
moulding
mould
parts production ---------------------------------
----------- moulder (processor) SME, big
company, multinational --------------------------
------------------ advanced integrated
environments (concurrent engineering, project
management, ERP...)
part
mould design mould production --------------------
------------------------ mouldmaker,
engineering SME... more S than M
! -------------------------------------------- CA
D, CAM, production control
part design --------------------------------------
------ engineering SME, big company,
multinational -----------------------------------
--------- advanced integrated environments (CAx,
PDM, concurrent engineering, project management,
ERP...)
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NEEDS
Clearly, the weakest link (in the purest TOC) of
this supply chain is the mouldmaker
briefing a mouldmaking company employees
average 25 production one-off project
based tool-shop oriented most of the times we
deal with a family-craft industry phases quotati
on ? design ? milling ? assembly ? test ?
validation
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NEEDS

• Just an example
• minimum time-to-market ? rapid decisions of the
  toolmaker
• accept/refuse the project (binary decision
  depending on resource availability)
• good quotation (good minimum deviations,
  maximum benefits)
• good production planning (good optimum
  resource assignment, minimum subcontracting,
  minimum destructive interferences with other
  current projects...)
• good providers (good on time at minimum cost)
• designing optimised tools (optimum maximum of
  productivity and quality at minimum cost)
• ...
• Clearly, ICT can alleviate all these needs
  (minimums, maximums, optimums...) and ASCAMM has
  been working in this direction during the last
  years.

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BEST PRACTICES

• Support decision (knowledge engineering)
• Applications that capture knowledge from experts,
  explicit (rule-based) and tacit (case-based) to
  assist in crucial phases of the whole supply
  chain workflow.
• Distributed KBS to accelerate the maturity stage
  of the application.
• Projects
• Knowledge Based Engineering for mould design (EC
  funding, IST-1999-20645)
• Case-Based Reasoning for mould quotations and
  testing (local funding)

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BEST PRACTICES

• e-Business (e-Collaboration)
• Solutions giving the CAD/CAE/CAM engineers the
  ability to have a distributed, common authoring
  platform as well as a platform for sharing data,
  common design, wrapping concepts around ideas...
• Communications consumes more than a half of
  business resources in the whole supply chain
  (Joule effect). The operator e- is the best
  opportunity to shortage this waste.
• Projects
• EMOULD Mouldmaking in an Internet-Worked World
  (EUREKA E!2620).
• Social Knowledge Networks for the plastic
  processing chain (Local funding)

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BEST PRACTICES

• e-Business (e-Commerce)
• It is unavoidable a first stage for paving the
  way to e-Commerce. In this phase, a well chosen
  set of web-based solutions must convince our
  companies that the Internet is a very suitable
  medium to immerse their workflow (suitable cost
  and time saving). Application Service Providing
  is a good opportunity to serve applications and
  design interesting business models in this
  sector.
• Projects
• EuroMetalWeb eMarketplace for Mechanics and
  Metallurgic Enterprises (TEN-TELECOM C27267)
• www.plastia.com (private funding)

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IDEAS FOR NEAR FUTURE

• We submitted an EoI called INTPLAST Intelligent
  Decision Support for the Plastic Processing
  Chain.
• This EoI is in evolution and merging with other
  consortia. We are making efforts in order to
  define a strong subproject based in the following
  IST topics
• Technological drivers to advance Agile
  Manufacturing
• Knowledge Systematisation and Management
• Knowledge-Based and Expert Systems
• Emerging software Standards and distributed,
  multi-tiered Architectures for CIM Solutions
• Intelligent Automation and Integration in
  Flexible Manufacturing
• Next Generation Manufacturing Systems, Holonic
  Manufacturing
• Simulation and Optimisation of Manufacturing
  Processes, Virtual Factory
• Operations Research and Logistic Processes
• Holarchy vs. Hierarchy in Manufacturing
  Enterprise Organization
• New Paradigms for Intelligent Manufacturing and
  Supply Chains
• The Virtual Enterprise in Manufacturing Networks
• Manufacturing Business Organisation for the
  Net-Economy
• () Thanks to our own RTD or to problem solvers
  such as Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona,
  Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, University
  of Sunderland... Does anyone else accept the
  challenge?

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e-Business for SMEs in FP6

• An evidence in our sector SMEs are not taking
  advantage of IS opportunities as the rest of the
  big companies in the supply chain do.
• FP6 ought to strengthen this weakest link of
  such a supply chain of a very relevant weight in
  the European economy.
• National programs must dedicate more efforts to
  pave the way to the breakthrough and the
  ambitious technological long-term goals of FP6.
• Proposed roadmap
• Short-term Foster knowledge-based and
  collaborative web-based solutions.
• Mid-term Rational introduction of intelligent
  manufacturing and e-Supply Chain Management.
• Long-term Automated and e-allianced SMEs
  perfectly integrated in supply chain and
  participating in equal opportunities.

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T H A N K S !