California Steel to Implement Broner Demand Modeller
12/19/2007 - Broner will supply California Steel with its Demand Modeller, which will help to support customer service, planning for slab acquisition, and capacity management.
California Steel Industries (CSI) has awarded a contract to Broner Metals Solutions to implement a Broner Demand Planning solution at its plant in Fontana, Calif. Broner will supply California Steel with its Demand Modeller, which will help the plant to improve customer service, planning of slab acquisition, and capacity management.
Broner’s Demand Planning solution will help CSI to better manage its supply chain by providing several business process improvements, including a more accurate tracking of orders against forecasts, as well as the provision of early warning if deviations occur. The system’s demand forecasting function will allow CSI to generate various demand scenarios based on sales history, collaborative forecasts or other sources.
The Demand Planning solution will be integrated with the current Broner Material and Production Planning tools. This will allow CSI to evaluate the stock coverage of current and confirmed slab inventories against the latest order book as well as trends in various future demand scenarios. This capability will help CSI’s decision-making for order scheduling and slab acquisition.
The integration of Demand Planning with Production Planning will also improve CSI’s tactical planning decisions when balancing capacity planning with order book management. The solution also includes new integrated reporting tools that will help to improve CSI’s internal collaboration by providing transparency of the current supply/demand status.
“After a scrutinised analysis of existing supply processes, we realized that we needed to introduce additional functionality in order to meet diverse changes arising in the slab supply market,” said Manny Lara, Production Planning Manager at California Steel. “Broner Demand Modeller closely met our requirements because it allows forecast scenarios to be evaluated against slab supply and production capacity.”
Implementation of Demand Modeller commenced in October 2007, and the project is estimated to take 6-8 months to execute. The Demand Modeller will complement existing Broner technologies, including the Production Planner, Production Scheduler and Material Planner modules. These modules have been in operation at California Steel for the last decade.
California Steel Industries is the leading producer of flat-rolled steel in the Western United States, with five product lines including hot-rolled, cold-rolled and galvanized sheet as well as electric resistance welded pipe. CSI produces approximately 2 million tons/year of finished product, from slabs purchased from around the world. CSI is owned by JFE Steel Corp. of Japan and Vale of Brazil.
Broner Metals Solutions specializes in delivering supply chain planning, scheduling and manufacturing execution systems and consultancy to the Steel and Aluminum industries.
