CS Holdings has won the 2002 Wonderware Best WIP Tracking/Production Management Award for its implementation of a R1,5 million intranet-based
distribution tracking system (DTS) for Delta Motor Corporation. Included among the entries from the southern Africa region were AST, SAM, Streamworks and Hatch.
"This award ratifies our clients' support of our services and demonstrates industry acknowledgement of our leading edge solutions capabilities," says CS Holdings divisional director Danny Naidoo.
This is not CS Holdings' first award from Wonderware. The company previously received the Wonderware Best Production Tracking Application award in 2001, and 1999's Best Batch application award. "We also won Wonderware awards for top-performing system integrator for the fourth year running, and best realtime or analytic database application for our information management at De Beers and Debswana Diamond Mining Company," Naidoo adds.
Delta Motor Corporation, the motor manufacturer based in Port Elizabeth, boasts a countrywide distribution network of assembled vehicles that extends across several right-hand-drive African countries, including Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia and Mauritius.
"The system is geared to provide realtime visibility of vehicles across all depots in the distribution area of the supply chain, which includes the status of orders, and inventory at multiple depots," Naidoo explains. "Previously, Delta relied on assumed knowledge and tedious manual stock takes to determine the whereabouts of their 4000 vehicles in distribution depots countrywide. The new tracking system will track the movements of the vehicles and link this information to Delta's transportation carrier company, Southern Star Organisation (SSO)."
The business process flow for the DTS starts at the buy-off from the production plants and the bond stores (in the case of imported units). The DTS then tracks all vehicle movement transactions that are encountered in the carrier despatches and depots (for external fitment), until the vehicles are handed over to the dealers or the customer.
According to Guy Vellacott, General Manager Information Technology at Delta Motor Corporation, the implementation has made a significant difference to Delta's ability to manage its business in a more effective, realtime manner. "Improved control, audit trails and management information mean we have a more effective means of tracking and predicting production and delivery, and our ability to make promises to customers is also significantly improved."
Vellacott says the new tracking system enables the vehicles to be accurately monitored at each stage of the distribution. "We now have better control over SSO as far as the speed and quality of their performance is concerned," he says. "Additionally, statistics on vehicle damage are also readily available, as is information on vehicle delivery to dealers. The fact that we now know where the vehicles are at any given point means we have better control over returned vehicles and are able to make more reliable promises to our customers regarding the delivery of newly purchased vehicles.
"The new system has also meant a substantial reduction in the paper trail," he continues. "Stocktaking, for example, has been reduced from several days to a few hours, and we can now do stocktaking whenever we want to quickly and easily using batch scanners. Consequently, the quarterly company stocktake is now far more accurate."
Another significant benefit of the DTS is the fact that it integrates fully with all other IT systems in the network. "The two production plants run on Wonderware, while all Delta's business systems run on SAP," Naidoo explains. "These, together with the mainframe-based Vehicle Distribution System (VDS), the Magic information system at SSO, plus the financial software used by the bank, all interface with the DTS so that information is passed in realtime to the various systems. Additionally, all systems are in synchrony in terms of the location, state and destination of the units."
"We chose CS Systems Integration because they have a national presence and offered the best solution for our requirements. The success of the DTS is a clear indication that they completely understood our requirements," Vellacott concludes.
About CS Holdings
CS Holdings is one of South Africa's leading business consulting and IT services firms, with a nation-wide infrastructure and staff of IT, engineering and business professionals. The group specialises in tailoring one-stop, integrated system solutions for large, corporate and public sector enterprises, from a broad suite of integrated application and technology service offerings across the range of processes, technology and people requirements.
For more information contact CS Holdings, 011 205 7000
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