Forest Products Industry Digital Transformation Story | Yıldız Entegre Succeeded
About the Company
Yıldız Entegre is one of Turkey’s leading and among the world’s top 10 largest manufacturers, operating in the forest products industry with more than a century of experience. Acting with the principle of “respect for nature and people,” the company has a broad product portfolio, including MDF, particle board, laminate flooring, door panels, and decorative products. Continuing its global operations with a total of 8 production facilities, 1 warehouse, and 1 port located in Turkey, Romania, and Slovenia, Yıldız Entegre has implemented digital transformation investments to increase efficiency in production processes, ensure standardization among facilities, and manage planning processes more effectively. Within this scope, it has achieved significant gains in production and planning processes with ProManage.
Adem Akçay
Reasons for Need
Yıldız Entegre initiated digital transformation efforts to increase production efficiency and manage its operations with real-time data. The company aimed to create a more visible, measurable, and sustainable production structure by reducing the time losses caused by manual processes.
- Accurate Measurement of Efficiency: There was a need to monitor workforce, equipment, downtime, and scrap data in production objectively and in real time.
- Increasing Capacity Utilization: Before making new investment decisions, it was aimed to clearly determine how efficiently existing machinery and equipment were being utilized.
- Creating a Common Management Language Across Facilities: The goal was to evaluate and compare the performance of factories in different locations using the same criteria.
- Improving Data Quality and Analysis Speed: The aim was to reduce data inconsistencies caused by manual processes and accelerate decision-making processes.
- Making Planning Processes More Visible: The objective was to establish a structure where production plans could be monitored over the long term and changes could be managed quickly.
- Strengthening Lean Manufacturing Efforts: The goal was to support OEE tracking, bottleneck analysis, and continuous improvement efforts with reliable data.
Motivation for Choosing and Important Details
Yıldız Entegre recognized that the visibility, speed, and data accuracy required by its growing operations could only be sustainably achieved through digital systems. While evaluating its digital transformation solution, the company prioritized technological capability, integration capacity, and the contribution it would provide to long-term business objectives.
- Integration Capability: An infrastructure capable of providing seamless, bidirectional data flow with the existing ERP (SAP) system and other third-party software was preferred.
- Digital Maturity and Experience: The solution partner’s leading position in the industry, widespread user network, and experience in similar manufacturing processes were critical selection criteria.
- Consultant Expertise: Expert teams that could quickly understand requirements, develop solutions, and effectively manage the project were an important evaluation criterion.
- Objective Data Focus: The goal was to overcome the subjectivity of manual methods by collecting downtime, scrap, and efficiency data directly from the shop floor accurately.
- Added Value of the Investment: During the decision-making process, not only costs but also efficiency, visibility, and operational gains were taken into consideration.
- Hardware and Equipment Compatibility: Attention was paid to ensuring that the digital solution would fully adapt to the extensive machine park across different locations and existing physical equipment.
Personal Experiences
The experiences Yıldız Entegre has gained during its digital transformation process and the key highlights of its transformation journey are as follows:
- Executive Management Support. Active support from executive management has played a critical role in ensuring ownership of the digital transformation process and its adoption across the organization.
- Establishment of a Dedicated Project Team: By establishing a dedicated MES project team consisting of experts selected from production, it became possible to prioritize needs, ensure coordination, and accelerate the transformation process.
- Cultural Transformation and Change Management: As many ways of working changed from production to planning, a comprehensive change management process was carried out to help employees adapt to the new system.
- Interdepartmental Collaboration and ERP Integration: Integration processes were managed through the collaboration of production, maintenance, information technology, and planning teams, ensuring operational alignment.
- Training and Digital Competency Development: Training was provided to all user groups, from operators to managers, supporting the effective use of digital systems.
- Paperless Operations and a Common Language: With the digitalization of all processes, from production confirmations to scrap entries, paper usage was eliminated; a common language was established where every department (planning, production, maintenance) could communicate based on the same data.
What Has ProManage Brought?
ProManage has provided Yıldız Entegre with multidimensional benefits:
- High Plan Compliance Rates: While the plan compliance rate in production processes has been increased to 90%, the adherence rate to customer deadlines (delivery commitments) has reached 85%.
- Forward-Looking and Dynamic Scheduling: Production plans, which are normally created on a daily or weekly basis, have become visible over a horizon extending up to 3 months and have gained a flexible structure through the drag-and-drop method.
- Paperless and Error-Free Production: Production confirmations, scrap entries, and labeling processes have been fully digitized, eliminating paper usage and removing errors caused by manual data entry.
- Common Language and Transparent Management: By ensuring that all units, from senior management to operators, speak the same language based on objective data such as OEE and TEP, communication between departments has been strengthened.
- Stock and Cost Minimization: Inventory levels have been optimized through the effective management of semi-finished product processes, directly contributing to cost reductions and increased operational efficiency.
- Rapid Intervention and Decision Support: Since breakdowns, downtime, and quality issues can now be monitored instantly, improvement projects (Kaizen) are carried out much faster and based on objective data.
- Customer Satisfaction and Automation: By minimizing phone traffic between sales and planning departments, customers have started receiving automatic and accurate delivery date information through digital tools.
- Investment Planning Accuracy: The capacity utilization of the existing machinery is measured clearly, and the need for new machine investments is analyzed based on actual data.
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