Global system for monitoring the supply chain in plant engineering
Company portrait
ALSTOM is a global energy and transportation group with headquarters in Paris and more than 70,000 employees in 70 countries. The Swiss ALSTOM Group, with over 6,000 employees in the Power Plants and Transportation divisions, is one of Switzerland’s largest industrial companies. ALSTOM’s power plants produce around a quarter of the world’s electricity. The ‘Transport Logistics Advanced’ (TLA) system was developed for the ALSTOM Power division (power generation).
The goals
The construction of power plants faces very individual challenges, as the projects are carried out in cooperation with several participants around the globe. Many months often pass between planning, commissioning, logistical movement and the final installation on site, and communication between the parties involved must be well organized. Coordination in the planning phase and structured handling of changes before and during transportation are a critical factor in shortening lead times in power plant construction. This reduction in throughput time is one of the foundations for ensuring competitiveness.
The collaboration
The initial situation
As early as 1990, a solution is implemented on behalf of the customer that provides material data from suppliers on the construction site. The file transfer is carried out via data carriers on floppy disks. The suppliers and the construction sites use a Visual Basic application with an MS Access file for data management. The data for the construction sites is enriched centrally by the customer with transport information, using an Oracle Forms application with Oracle database. In later phases, the use of the Internet as a central platform is repeatedly considered. However, the convenience of a client-server application and the generally poorly developed infrastructure in the construction site countries mean that considerations based on the Internet remain purely theoretical.
The project
The TLA system has been designated as the central tool within the ‘Material Handling’ department. Suppliers enter the materials and packaging into their local module and can send them to the central logistics department for checking, scheduling and further processing. From there, the materials and packaging are added to the transports and forwarded to the construction sites. Installation is documented at the construction sites. Solutions for the integration of engineering and prefabricators (as an “extended workbench”) are designed and presented on the basis of prototypes. By using the .NET Framework 2.0 and taking object-oriented methods into account, user-friendly basic functionalities and a stable architecture are created for all modules involved.
Project ID: 1999
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The application must be embedded in an existing system landscape. Technical integration is therefore obvious. For ALSTOM management, the focus is always on automating further routine work steps and thus saving valuable working time in order to be able to provide more output with the same number of staff. Lotus Notes is used as the mail system in the ALSTOM Group. The logistics department processes around 15,000 mails per construction site per year. A user-friendly interface provides the appointments as default values in Lotus Notes via ODBC. Templates and intelligent placeholders are used to automatically generate a customized mail. The e-mails sent and received are linked to the relevant business process via hyperlink using automatic recognition algorithms and can be viewed by all authorized persons via HTTP on a domino server in the browser.
The improvements suggested by users are implemented in the globally distributed software using an automatic update process. Users can update their local module at the touch of a button via an Internet portal. If they need additional support, they can register in the TLA community and access a forum with integration into the application help as well as telephone support. The application is being continuously developed.
In the current application, the uniform use of technical key terms is guaranteed in every language. This ensures both the quality and versatility of the application for the customer. The translation process is optimally organized and it is possible to add new languages and install them separately at any time. The help documents are created on the basis of MS Word and integrated into this process.
To emphasize the new tasks, ALSTOM also wants to distinguish the project from the original solution on the outside. For this reason, a modern work of art was commissioned to illustrate the parallel concepts of information exchange. The result is a 4-part screen that appears as a uniform initial screen in the applications. Each screen in itself represents a function in the process and the screens as a whole represent a superordinate concept: Start dialog of the new application: Example construction site “Site”.
The functions Supplier, Transport (Home), PreFabricator and Site are mapped from top to bottom. The engineering appears as an accompanying function in the left-hand area of each of the four individual images.
The tasks of the PTA
The initial solution for the application was developed by PTA Germany for ALSTOM Germany from 1990 to 2004. After the 2004 ALSTOM project is relocated internally from Germany to Switzerland, the PTA quickly adapts to this situation. In 2005, a new organization is created within the PTA Group so that the customer can be supported locally from the start of production. The applications will then be migrated to the new technological platform for ALSTOM Switzerland. In addition, essential and enhanced functions are designed and implemented. PTA Switzerland supports the project on site with qualified support staff and in the areas of technical conception, project management, IT conception and implementation.
Customer testimonial
“Today’s power plant business requires a global logistics process – the integration of suppliers is an indispensable prerequisite. The TLA application enables suppliers to record material and packaging data using a stand-alone solution. This data, together with transportation information, is transmitted to the construction site. This makes the global process transparent for everyone involved. This complex project could only be realized through open, communicative and solution-oriented cooperation with PTA. Due to the constant change in the logistics environment, the application will continue to be adapted and further developed in the future.”
Sandro Lepori, CHST Transport Logistics
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