Muovi-Heljanko

Challenge: As production grew, automation of plant operation became inevitable.

Production work is carried out in three shifts five days a week. Packages for a number of Finnish foodstuffs, cosmetics products, and selected alcohol products are manufactured at the factory. Muovi-Heljanko sees great business potential in streamlining production.

– We have aimed to prepare for future volumes proactively and anticipatorily. We used to plan our production manually, using Google Calendar and paper slips, but since production volumes are on the rise, we want to utilize the possibilities offered by automation increasingly more, says Mia-Maija Manninen.

For streamlining of production and state-of-the-art manufacturing control, a software partner needs to have a genuine understanding of the customer company’s business and product range. In the new software commissioning stage, open and honest discussion of matters involving special effort is required.

Solution: Pinja’s PES system helped to improve production planning

The co-operation with Pinja commenced in fall 2017. With the help of Pinja’s PES system, Muovi-Heljanko has been able to improve the accuracy of production planning and anticipate both material and personnel work needs.

The company also employs the Visma Nova enterprise resource planning system, into which PES was integrated. The objective was to make possible input of all data into a single system for processing, thereby facilitating practical decision-making by the production planner. Providing machine operators with a continuous view of the job queue was also of special importance.

– Our systems have worked very well together. Naturally, extracting and cleaning source data in the commissioning stage required some effort, but in the future, the opportunity to obtain all the necessary information from a single system will be a great advantage for us. For example, with the help of changeover time matrices, we can see the changeover works to be expected at the lines if the mold or customer work should change. At the same time, we can see to which shift a work task is allocated, says Mia-Maija Manninen, a sales support specialist at Muovi-Heljanko.

The new era of plastic: Quality and quantity matter

Reduction in the use of fossil materials and transition to biological and recycling-based alternatives are prominently featured in social debate. Muovi-Heljanko is at the forefront of development and gladly participates in wider discussions as well.

– As many people know, plastic is the dominant material in food packaging, for example.

However, both quantity and quality are important. Because of this, we keep our eyes on the future and engage in ongoing testing and development of our products, says Mårten Karlsson, Sales Manager at Muovi-Heljanko.

When calculating the carbon footprint, it is essential to consider all aspects of the chain and to look at things from a broader perspective. For example, food loss is a significant environmental challenge, and plastic is often superior to other materials in minimizing waste. Also, a wide range of plastics made from recycled materials and bio-based raw materials is currently available.

– Efficiency strongly guides all our operations, including material procurement. Our objective is for our purchases to be highly automated, well timed, and quantitatively optimized. In this area as well, we utilize PES in our daily work, Karlsson says.