Plasti-Gest at a plastics group: presses, quality and traceability integrated

For years the company had used a heavily customised management system, alongside specialist subsystems such as the Hanel vertical warehouse, WorkPlan and other applications, which were already integrated and had to keep communicating with the new platform.

The goal was to introduce a new web architecture while retaining and rationalising the vertical logic developed over time. The key requirements were a web interface, strong integration with external applications, production planning and progress tracking, continuity with the previous system, customisable functions and integration with web applications and CRM.

1. 01

   Complex industrial production

   Production orders, presses, moulds, materials, in-house and external processing and progress tracking must be coordinated in a single process.

2. 02

   Vertical processes to preserve

   The previous ERP was heavily customised: the new platform had to retain the functions that were genuinely needed and adapt them to the new architecture.

3. 03

   Quality and traceability in production

   Lots, quality checks, scrap and non-conformities must be linked directly to production orders and phases.

4. 04

   Physical logistics aligned with the ERP

   Pallets, boxes, handling units, locations, the vertical warehouse and handheld terminals must be synchronised with ERP data.

5. 05

   Several plants to coordinate

   The system had to support a multi-plant structure, keeping specific processes and automations for the group’s different sites.

6. 06

   Data quality during migration

   Historical anomalies in stock levels, lots, locations and routing cycles required work on data consistency before the final migration.

Labinf Sistemi launched the evolution of the information system on LIGEST 2.0 / iDempiere, bringing the vertical processes developed for the group onto the new platform. This set of functions for plastics processing is what makes up Plasti-Gest.

The project covered data migration, integrations, testing, optimisation with key users, training and go-live support, with dedicated contacts for each area and optimisation and training sessions for individual processes.

Areas involved

• General accounting
• Management control
• Sales and purchasing cycles
• Press scheduling and production
• Quality lots and non-conformities
• Logistics and warehouse
• Labels, handling units and barcodes
• Technical office
• Sales CRM
• Integrations with external systems

Production starts from orders planned by MRP and scheduled on resources. The press schedule separates production orders already scheduled from those still to be assigned, and allows orders to be assigned to presses, mould status to be managed, hoppers linked to presses, quantities and dates defined, and progress and any stoppages followed, integrating data from other factory systems.

Each order is associated with quality lots, created at start-up, on a change of material or raw material lot, after a set production interval or following work on a machine or mould, with a dedicated structure for handling several lots on the same order. Non-conformities are linked to product, lot, shipment, goods receipt, production order and phase, customer or supplier and operator, recording defects, quantities segregated, recovered or scrapped, containment and corrective actions, time spent and costs.

Logistics is built around lots, handling units, boxes, pallets, locations and barcodes. On goods receipt the system assigns the lot, generates labels, creates handling units and pallets and records the location; movements are made from handheld terminals by scanning the pallet and location barcodes, also moving the lots and handling units they contain. Shipping starts from customer orders, with picking, pallet rebuilding, EDI labels and shipping notices.

Pallet, box/handling unit, bag and generic labels can be linked to product attributes and lot, assigning different identifiers to individual units while keeping the reference to the main production lot.

The Hanel vertical warehouse was retained and integrated for item master data, movements, goods receipts and loading and unloading, with some flows run manually and others scheduled. WorkPlan remains connected for the toolroom and technical office, including the transfer of purchase requests to iDempiere; EDI, shop-floor terminals, CRM, Tesar and automatic imports of orders, price lists and budgets are also integrated.

After the progressive migration of the chart of accounts, customers and suppliers, products, bills of materials, routing cycles, price lists, orders, lots, labels and stock, the system went live on 2 January 2025, with on-site support for logistics, shipping, goods receipt, EDI orders, production start-up, progress tracking, labels, moulding, quality, lot opening and non-conformities.

• Production, logistics, quality and administration integrated
• Planning of presses and production orders
• More structured lot traceability
• Quality linked directly to production activities
• Structured handling of scrap and non-conformities
• Handling units, boxes and pallets moved by barcode
• Integration with vertical warehouse, WorkPlan and factory systems
• Automated EDI flows
• Coordinated management of several plants
• A single web platform for the main business areas