Customer case

A Comprehensive Overview for Supervisors Rockwool A/S

With an easily-accessible user inter- hourly-paid employees, Preben Schmidt face, the Mark Group has develop- explains. ed an efficient planning tool for the – Up to now, we have applied ProMark – company’s mid-level managers who from Mark Information as well – for have the operational responsibility registration of time and attendance, for combining orders, resources and absence, overtime etc. These details were employees. At present, Rockwool is then, together with information of for implementing the system. example employees on loan to other departments, processed by our book- – We are still in the initial phase and keeping department. With the transition thus relatively inexperienced in the to ProManagement, the supervisors in the use of the ProManagement system, specific departments have been equipped says Preben Schmidt, Departmental with a much more comprehensive over- Manager, Rockwool A/S in Vamdrup. view, and we may enter the hours more – Some of the functionalities are thus efficiently and plan more precisely in not implemented yet, but at this point, accordance with our capacity. it is obvious that the system is easy and speedy to work with and that it greatly improves the processes due to A significant overview its vast range of practical functions. – The very word "overview" is the key Rockwool A/S, which employs 800 word for ProManagement, which is employees at its factories in , developed as a module for the rostering is part of the Danish owned group part of our ProMark system, emphasises Rockwool International A/S that em- Tim Janum, Sales Manager i Mark ploys 7,400 employees and has a turn- Information, which is part of the Mark over of DKK 6.7 billion. The Group Group, the largest provider of systems for manufactures stone wool used for time and attendance, job registration and insulating buildings, industrial facili- rostering in Scandinavia. ties etc. – The module gives a comprehensive overview of the employees, the pro- Covers all of the hourly-paid duction resources and the production plans. An overview that may prove The factory in Vamdrup is divided crucial to the timely delivery of the into five sections: The production products as well as the profitability of the line, in which stones are melted by products. The system gives the mid-level means of excessive heat and spun to manager the possibility of improving the fibres that subsequently are moulded utilisation of his or her resources, for into batts or sheets of various dimen- example by identifying unutilised over- sions. The confectionary department capacity or bottlenecks in the department of which Preben Schmidt is head and and in the company. in which the raw wool is further processed into specific sizes and shapes, for example by cutting wed- Combination of production plan ges and manufacturing universal pipe and future manning plan sections. And warehouse, production – You may say that ProManagement is control and maintenance respectively. the "ERP system" (Enterprise Resource – We apply the new system from Planning) of the budget responsible Mark Information in all of the five supervisor, Tim Janum states. – It lets sections and it thus incorporates 245

you plan and manage your employee that being able to quickly estimate resources in accordance with the whether or not the necessary production plan generated by the qualifications are represented in the company’s ERP or MPC system rostering when required is an advantage. (Material and Production Control) – We have not implemented the quali- through the combination of the fication module yet, but it is one of the resource need and the future manning functionalities that I am looking forward plan. This kind of combination then to make use of, Preben Schmidt says. – identifies immediate discrepancies We dispose of seven different machines between the needs scheduled and the for confectioning in my department. All actual attendance schedule and thus of the 34 employees have to be able to shows the areas that need adjustment operate the basic machines, but we also for redundant or low capacity. Last have three machines that require additio- but not least, the supervisor in nal qualifications hence the system would question may calculate the costs of a ease the scheduling in this respect. given attendance schedule for the company. Implementation user group The point of departure for the roster- ing may vary in accordance with the Rockwool A/S uses SAP as their accoun- company’s or the department’s needs. ting system from which the production Thus the guiding parameter may be plan is generated, but the company has the tasks that should be performed. chosen rostering from Mark Information. But if the production equipment or the – Among other things, this choice is employees are the scarce resources, made on the basis of price considerations, then ProManagement may make one but the outstanding design of the user of these parameters the focal area for interface in ProManagement plays a the scheduling. significant part as well, Preben Schmidt says, who together with a colleague from Attendance schedule with the the office team has been a representative proper qualifications from the factory in Vamdrup in the user group that participated in the implemen- You may also use rostering to adjust tation of the system. the employee resources across the company. So instead of having an – The user group, which consisted of a absence budget in each department, supervisor and a representative from the you may have a total absence budget office team from each of Rockwool’s that is based on employees on loan Danish companies, has been trained in among the departments in the com- the system at Mark’s premises in Lyng- pany. by. After this, we have been responsible for the training of our colleagues. In – And the system lets you make the Vamdrup we have thus trained 15 necessary arrangements based on supervisors in the planning and the qualifications, Tim Janum points out. approval modules of the system. – Generally, the staff in the compa- nies are composed of a number of specialists – skilled workers, who may have various certificates or employees who have been trained in a given function etc. It goes without saying

Unambiguous user interface – At the beginning, I was a bit scep- tical towards the system and the fact that we were in control of the functio- nalities ourselves, Preben Schmidt admits. – But when I set out working with the system, its user friendliness surprised me.

I hardly spend any time on the system; on the contrary, I save time in At Rockwool’s factory in Vamdrup, some areas. For example, it is much the rostering module in ProManage- easier in the morning when 15-16 ment approximately incorporates 245 employees clock in at the same time, hourly-paid employees. because they change from "red men" to "green men" on my screen when they clock in. Previously, I had to The level of knowledge that the Mark walk around in the department to get teachers have of the system is impressive, this kind of overview. but to me and two others as well it was – The system also makes it possible to difficult to comprehend before our enter messages, for example to em- employees were entered in the system ployees on the night shift, that pop up, and before we could allocate the when they clock in. – And it takes less employees ourselves and see the than one seminar day to learn, Tim consequences of this. Janum points out. Preben Schmidt fully agrees, but he has however a minor appeal that the sales manager in Mark Information promises to take note of: – The system is comprehensible and unam- biguous – also to the supervisors, who are not used to state-of-the-art IT systems, but the training was aiming too high.

Mark Information is one of Europe’s leading suppliers of systems for data collection, job and roster planning, project registration, time & attendance and access control. The company markets ProMark which is used by medium sized and large corporations throughout Europe. The client list includes

companies like Carlsberg Denmark A/S, H. , Air, Rockwool, Roug and Volvo Aero . Mark Information’s head office is located in , Denmark, and sales offices are situated in the UK, Denmark, and Norway.

030306 For more information, please see www.mark-info.co.uk.

Mark Information UK Ltd. The Oracle Building . Blythe Valley Park Solihull B90 8AD . West Midlands Tel. 0 121 506 9690 [email protected] Fax 0 8701 35 55 59 www.mark-info.co.uk