From IT systems to carbon footprint calculations – developing surface treatment on a wide scale

”We are working on many fronts, and in various ways. Development is going on with customers, internally and from environmental point of view” FSP’s development director rauli yrjänä summarizes the news for the early autumn. He believes that many projects that are being started now will in the future prove useful for all units and customers.

Rauli Yrjänä has been busy in this exceptional time of the corona pandemic. The Development Director tells us why FSP’s innovation team, chaired by Yrjänä himself, had already named digitalization and customer engagement in innovation and development as its main focal points. Recent times have confirmed that these were good choices.

– A difficult situation is always a challenge: there may be disruptions in supply chains and the availability of resources. Early this summer, we started a project to design and create a new kind of user friendly, easy- to-grasp tool for production planning, Yrjänä says. 

– Production is still largely planned with Excel sheets. Yet, we know that often a single change can affect the entire production chain. So we wanted a modern, visual tool that would quickly show us what that change would look like. It would make planning a lot easier.

A suitable commercial production planning tool could not be found, so work began on tailoring one for FSP and its customers. Yrjänä reveals that one customer has already committed to pilot the new solution.

– We plan to map out the wishes of our production facilities and customers in more detail during this coming year. This way we can ensure that the tool will address all needs and settings and will also be suitable for a more extensive implementation.

FSP’s own digital development is also moving forward.

– We have been updating our ERP. The new ERP platform, which will be piloted in the autumn, will enable the transfer of assignments and orders between systems. This is a major change, as our units can have up to hundreds of orders each month. The manual phase is now left out, greatly improving both the efficiency and reliability of our work. EDI file transfer is in pilot stage and will be implemented in all units that find it useful, Rauli Yrjänä explains.

Every FSP unit has gotten an electronic info screen in their social rooms.

– We operate in many units across three countries. An electronic info screen is an agile and modern way to share information about both individual units and the whole corporation. Screens have received a positive response and units are eagerly waiting to have them. People want to get information, but sometimes they are just too busy to log in to the intranet.

CUTTING THE CARBON EMISSIONS

Environmental issues are central to FSP’s development work. An inquiry was started earlier on new ways to cut the VOC emissions of surface treatment facilities. FSP is currently participating in a project, initiated by one of its customers, that aims to reduce the carbon footprint of a product, to tackle climate change.

– One of our key customers wants to cut 50% of its carbon dioxide emissions by 2030. We are now calculating what this means for surface treatment. I believe that this project will yield new insights that will benefit FSP as a whole, and also the entire industry, Rauli Yrjänä says.

Another topical subject in FSP is the planning of a new strategy. Formulation on the new strategy has just begun, and climate and environment are also present in this work.

– We want to bring our own environmental goals up to date. We are starting by identifying our current state, and from there we create a plan to reach our goals, Yrjänä explains.

AUDITING CONFIRMS QUALITY NOW AND IN THE FUTURE

One way of getting information on the present situation is through auditing. FSP’s internal and external audits for 2020 have been completed. Audits have been performed with a new tool, giving results on a wide range.

– The focal areas of our auditing tool are profitability, development and standardization. In these audits, we map out and score several areas of operation, from strategy to everyday surface treatment and how it is organized. This gives us a detailed view of our current status and what needs improving, Rauli Yrjänä describes.

In the future, all internal audit data is gathered in a single location, enabling its comprehensive analysis.

– Annual audit data can be utilized in several ways in our development, Rauli Yrjänä says.