The SIJ Group has made strides toward its mission to become the most successful niche manufacturer of steel products in Europe. One particularly significant move in recent years was increasing its share of steel products with higher added value from 55% to 70%. The group then embarked on a search for a technology partner that would enable it to sustain this high-volume growth while maintaining excellent customer service. The search ended with Quintiq’s appointment as the production planning partner for SIJ Acroni.
Quintiq was the clear choice for SIJ Acroni. The vast experience and expertise of the Quintiq team in steel production planning was evident in its track record of successful projects for some of the world’s largest steel manufacturers. The Quintiq solution will equip SIJ Acroni with end-to-end visibility of its supply chain – from steelmaking to slitting and packaging. Full visibility will enable the company to better plan and optimize its resources and inventory, quickly identify and eliminate production bottlenecks, and improve overall process flows.
“Competition is growing in the steelmaking market and the winners will be the companies that can consistently offer their customers the highest-quality products and the highest-delivery performance while at the same time, optimizing the use of their internal production assets,” says Vladimir Arshinov, CIO of SIJ Group. “In our project with Quintiq, our goal isn’t merely to balance our day-to-day execution to deliver on those three areas, but to achieve significant improvements in each one of them. To maintain our leadership position in the market, we selected one of the most advanced planning systems from Quintiq. It was the only system robust enough to fulfil our most stringent requirements and flexible enough to adapt to our unique production configuration and complicated technological routes.”
The Quintiq solution will integrate all planning activities in SIJ Acroni’s steelmaking plant and rolling facilities: “The solution will enable our planners to better balance the metal flow through the factory and fulfill orders faster while working with lower inventories. It will maximize utilization of available capacity by optimizing bottleneck resources and in doing so, expand SIJ Acroni’s production capacity of steel products even further,” says Branko Žerdoner, general manager, SIJ Acroni. “The solution will also reduce the impact of disruptions and unexpected downtimes, and schedule maintenance according to commercial priorities.”
“Customers look to Quintiq for a powerful planning solution that will meet their business needs and fit their unique operating environment. Quintiq delivers every single time,” said Markus Malinen, vice president EMEAR, Quintiq. “We know the steel industry very well and we’re confident that we will not only enable, but accelerate, SIJ Acroni’s efforts toward maintaining its leading position in the European and global niche steel markets.”
About SIJ Acroni
SIJ Acroni is part of the SIJ Group, the largest vertically integrated metallurgical group in Slovenia and a leading player in the European and global niche steel markets. SIJ Group ranks among the top ten Slovenian business groups and top five Slovenian exporters. SIJ Acroni is a part of the SIJ Group steel division and the biggest company in the group. It is the leading producer of stainless steel quarto plates in Europe and third in the world. SIJ Group also ranks as one of the largest European producers of tool steels.
For more information, visit sij.acroni.si, sij.si or follow SIJ Group on LinkedIn and Instagram.
About Quintiq
Every business has its supply chain planning challenges. Some of those challenges are large. Some are complex. Some seem impossible to solve. Since 1997, Quintiq has been solving each of these challenges with a supply chain planning & optimization software system. Today, approximately 12,000 users in over 80 countries rely on Quintiq software to plan and optimize workforces, logistics and production. Part of Dassault Systèmes (Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA), Quintiq has headquarters in the Netherlands and the USA, and offices around the world.
For more information, visit quintiq.com or follow Quintiq on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.
