Sofia Med

From its foundry, rolling and extrusion mills in Sofia, Bulgaria, Sofia Med has the capacity to produce 140,000 metric tons of copper and copper alloy products per year. Used in everything from renewable energy systems and electric vehicles to buildings, the manufacturer’s range of copper sheets, strips, rods and plated bus bars are a cornerstone of modern technology, sought after for their excellent electric and thermal conductivity, durability and resistance to corrosion.

Sofia Med’s customers value its ability to deliver customized copper products and apply advanced plating and coating techniques to enhance product durability and performance, particularly for electrical applications. The company’s fully integrated production process, encompassing copper melting and casting, hot and cold rolling, extrusion, and precise cutting and slitting, means it can deliver a tailored copper product for virtually any application in any industry, including the energy, automotive and construction sectors. 

Sofia Med’s use of DELMIA Quintiq, Dassault Systèmes’ advanced planning and scheduling solution, plays a critical role in optimizing its complex production workflows, improving delivery performance and reducing lead times, all while keeping inventory costs under control.

The company’s decision to implement the solution stemmed from a need to master complexity. Every copper product is 100% made to order, uses up to 50 separate resources, and involves up to 20 production steps, taking anywhere from 5 to 45 days to make. The escalating cost of copper also demands a strong focus on inventory. Sofia Med needed a way to gain better visibility of its production processes, streamline material flow, and improve scheduling accuracy.

Working with its technology partner WHISCO Consultants, Sofia Med began by implementing DELMIA Quintiq’s Company Planner solution. Within months, WHISCO helped the company map its needs and adapt its workflows to fit the solution’s framework. Critically, Sofia Med gained the capabilities to optimally plan orders in terms of priority and get early alerts for planning errors, particularly for complex work orders.

Once the manufacturer was fully up and running on DELMIA Quintiq Company Planner, it made steady improvements to its production processes and delivery performance. This was largely attributed to enhanced material flow between the foundry and the downstream rolling factory.

Following the success of the first phase of its digital transformation, Sofia Med went on to implement DELMIA Quintiq’s Scheduler solution. Again, working with WHISCO Consultants, the company mapped its existing processes to the solution’s capabilities to achieve accurate and efficient scheduling, supporting it in making the best use of its resources and effectively planning staff shifts.

Work orders and production schedules are now aligned with a medium-term production plan.

“Company Planner has drastically improved our visibility of the entire supply chain very soon after the completion of the project” said Sofia Med's head of Supply Chain.

Implementing Dassault Systèmes’ advanced planning and scheduling solutions has led to transformative results across Sofia Med’s supply chain. Increased visibility and a structured, rule-based approach to planning and scheduling have seen delivery performance surge by 50%, while lead times have reduced by up to 15%, depending on the product.

Inventory management is now more streamlined, ensuring materials are available at the right time, and the accuracy of the monthly production plan is now close to 100%. Additionally, with the ability to run what-if scenarios, Sofia Med can optimize the production schedule and adapt quickly to disruptions or unexpected issues.

“DELMIA Quintiq provides Sofia Med with invaluable visibility of our supply chain and unwavering reliability towards our customers, further propelling our company’s development,” said Petros Kyrou, supply chain management senior manager at Sofia Med. 

The two projects were implemented [basically] on-time and on budget.  “Critical success factors were the Express QPLC (Quintiq Project Lifecycle) Methodology that was used and the very good co-operation between the Sofia Med and WHISCO teams” according to Periklis Tsahageas, WHISCO Consultancy Manager. The projects received two awards in the 2023 Manufacturing Excellence Awards, one in the 2024 BITE (Business IT Excellence) Awards and were presented at the December 2023 Lean Manufacturing Conference, in Athens.