Altaïr Group

From wood treatments and insecticides to soap and laundry powder, Altaïr Group has been producing essential products for the home since it was founded over 75 years ago. Today, through its eight household brands – Starwax, Briochin, Oro, K.PRO, Sinto, Tenn, Mistol and Harris – the France-based company has built up a strong reputation across Europe for its high-quality products as well as its industrial know-how.

The company’s activities are split into two main areas:

• Developing and manufacturing liquid, aerosol and mastic products
• Product packaging and labeling

Managing supply and demand across the two business units is a constant juggling act. Altaïr Group wanted to bring visibility to its operations, optimize its resources and synchronize production flows, which is why they turned to DELMIA Ortems.

Altaïr Group plans production runs based on its sales forecasts and must ensure it always has the right products and packaging in stock to keep up with customer demand and deliver wholesale orders on time.

Across each of its different brands, the group must keep track of sales and develop packaging and labeling which complies with industry regulations and caters to specific market requirements. This means that product packaging and labels are constantly updated, and any changes must be implemented quickly so as not to create bottlenecks in the value chain.

Constant tension between raw material supplies, production resources and packaging and  labeling requirements requires accurate scheduling at finite capacity. Each of Altaïr Group’s brands must be able to balance supply and demand and avoid running out of packaging or products.

Committed to a more responsible future, Altaïr Group is also constantly working to optimize its processes to better manage its resources. As part of its sustainability vision, the company is focused on reducing packaging and optimizing water and energy consumption across its production processes. It is also working to be part of the circular economy and is taking steps to accelerate its energy transition, recover its production waste and promote the use of natural ingredients while protecting its workers and improving their quality of life at work.

Altaïr Group worked with its technology partner Visiativ to implement DELMIA Ortems for handling all production planning and scheduling. Visiativ integrated DELMIA Ortems Master Production Scheduling solution with the company’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and provided ongoing support to ensure the technology met its needs.

Working together, Altaïr Group achieved its objective to guarantee a service rate of over 99% by synchronizing planning and packaging. The project also made it possible to optimize changeover times on the packaging lines, while taking into account the availability of raw materials, lead times and storage constraints.

For Sylvain Berdin, ERP project manager at Altaïr Group, the biggest benefit of DELMIA Ortems so far has been the ability to plan ahead, so that all packaging and production requirements are considered early on.

“The greatest value of DELMIA Ortems is to help us optimize our production processes and make best use of our resources as we have a clear view of upcoming manufacturing orders,” Berdin said.

This agile way of working helps to reduce changeover times on the packaging lines, which can interrupt production and extend product lead times. Through accurate planning and forecasting, Altaïr can take steps to keep modifications on the line to a minimum, especially for components that take longer to change.

“Changeover times fluctuate a lot depending on the types of products, packaging and labels we’re dealing with,” Berdin said. “A changeover time can range from 45 minutes to one hour. If we change the product, it can take four hours to rinse the tank, so it’s important for us to optimize our production plans. Thanks to DELMIA Ortems, we have achieved this by launching rationalized production plans and linking our work orders to the prepared matrix upstream.”

Automated planning capabilities also help Altaïr’s planners work smarter. The schedulers work on a six-week planning basis: the first week is set so they can focus on finite capacity scheduling in week two, leaving four weeks to define upcoming work orders and fill the production schedule. Throughout, they have full visibility of stock levels to ensure all planning, scheduling and production is on track to fulfill every order.