IBM technology helped improve ski production and the skis themselves

The company Blizzard Sport produces skis and equipment, accessories for skiers for more than half a century. Since the 1950s, this company has created millions of pairs of skis and a smaller number of different accessories. Each year Blizzard produces about 400,000 pairs of skis, the lineup includes about 900 different models. Here and ordinary skis, and racing skis, freestyle skiers. In the manufacture of skis used more than 50 thousand types of different materials.

But times are changing, even the climate is changing, and with it the needs of lovers of skiing. But the manufacturer needs to know these needs, because the equipment and its types must also meet the requirements of consumers. If you do not follow the trends, you can get significant losses instead of the expected profits, because the production line needs to be rebuilt in case of changes, and it takes time. And here high technologies come to the rescue, in particular - powerful computer systems and software from IBM, which make it possible to reduce the time required for changes, to a separate production cycle, and to improve the monitoring of product quality.
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What should have been done?

The main task of the manufacturer, at the operational level, is to minimize equipment downtime due to changes in one or another production line. In addition, a significant loss to the company brings a defective product (problems with packaging, accessories, etc.). Control of such defects is no less important a task than the restructuring of the production line.
You can try to identify and major defects for different models of skis - in order to correct the shortcomings of production, and reduce the appearance of defective products to a minimum.

What was done?

Blizzard invited IBM partner BI plus GmbH to cooperate. This is a Viennese provider of smart business solutions. Partner solutions are mainly based on the IBM Cognos portfolio. BI plus was able to create a self-learning system for detecting defects, which, in turn, integrated into the Blizzard production process.

Sensors of such a system were installed at key points of production, and data for processing began to arrive, and in large quantities. Data is handled by the IBM Cognos Data Manager software package, which processes data, unifies, and sends to the general Blizzard database.

Additional key elements of the system include:
• IBM Cognos Business Intelligence V10 and IBM Cognos Express applications used by Blizzard for reporting, analysis, and graphical visualization of analysis results;
• IBM Cognos 10 Enterprise Planning - a software package that allows a company to predict changes in the supply of the necessary materials and systems in a changing market;
• IBM Cognos TM1 software package used for collective planning, analysis and forecasting / budget;
• IBM Cognos Controller - used to determine funding for specific areas of production.



Results:
• Reduce the time of the production cycle by 53%, from 38 to 18 days, by reducing the number of unnecessary actions;
• Decrease of inventory base level by 49%, from 772 thousand euros to 392 thousand;
• Reducing the amount of materials for the inventory base by 40%.

As mentioned above, to achieve the result, sensors and system detectors were installed at all key points of production.
The level of analysis has been raised to unprecedented heights, in terms of increasing the efficiency of analytical work, using the data obtained to plan. As an example, we can cite one of the results obtained when it was discovered that skis of greater length require 20% more time during the production cycle. The measures taken by the staff helped reduce the time spent on the entire production line by 30%.

Detection of problem areas of the production process allowed the support team to quickly respond to problems and solve them in the shortest possible time, preventing the occurrence of defects.

Production has become truly “transparent”, understandable both for management and for individual employees.

What software was used?

Business analytics : Cognos TM1; Cognos Business Intelligence; Cognos 10; Cognos Controller; Cognos Planning; Cognos 8 BI Data Manager; SPSS Statistics; SPSS Data Collection.
Production and Assembly : F & A: Integrated Industry Framework

As a conclusion, we can say that after the introduction of software from IBM, it turned out to remove the “black boxes” of the production process, when it was impossible to understand exactly what factors are affecting and what can be changed if something is added or removed. Now the production cycle is completely transparent, and the result of the work can be compared with the plan in real time.