Orrefors Kosta Boda plans a crystal-clear futureCustomer Story The Orrefors Kosta Boda group has produced exclusive glass articles for hundreds of years. A joint development software project with IBS will help this modern-day company improve its business processes. Not many companies can boast a history that spans several centuries. Even more remarkable is the fact that Orrefors Kosta Boda has been offering the same type of products – crystal stemware, art glass, vases, plates and bowls – since the start. Orrefors was founded in 1898, and Kosta Boda in 1742.
The glass articles produced today at Orrefors Kosta Boda are made using many of the same techniques that have existed since the first glass vessels were made in Mesopotamia around 1500 b.c. The basic procedure involves the mixing of sand, sodium carbonate and limestone and heating these ingredients to an extremely high temperature in order to produce molten liquid glass. This liquid glass is then heated again on the end of a tube, and the glassblower blows through the tube, turning the glass in different directions to form it into different objects.
Peter Johansson, logistics manager at Orrefors Kosta Boda says, “One of our challenges as a company has been that we present new collections to our customers all the time. We offer them between 150 and 200 new items per year, which must then be produced.”
Forecasting needs
With more than 500,000 order lines invoiced each year, there were three major needs to fulfil when Orrefors Kosta Boda started looking at software for advanced planning and forecasting. “We needed to be able to keep track of all of our new items. We needed to be able to offer our wholesale customers a large number of different promotions and discounts, and we have a large assortment of products and individual pieces within the various collections,” Johansson explains.
Orrefors Kosta Boda was looking for a reliable method to forecast its future sales. In addition, the software would need to be easy to use worldwide on a daily basis.
A joint software development project, teaming employees from IBS Global Software and Orrefors Kosta Boda, provided the solution. Together they worked to find a method for forecasting that would meet the glass company’s specific needs for logistics, production and sales.
Ronny Axelsson, project manager at Orrefors Kosta Boda for the software project says, “The ability to pre-book orders at the warehouse and subsequently fill invoices as the merchandise is sold is a new function that didn’t exist previously. IBS included this in the software development specifically for us.”
Glass in demand
Demand for Orrefors Kosta Boda products is high. The company has five shifts running the ovens that melt the sand composite mixture for its domestic glassware, 24 hours a day, 320 days each year.
For Axelsson, the joint development of the IBS software has meant the business process is more efficient. “We can now delegate the order forecasting work directly to the responsible departments within the company. Information is delivered in a more cohesive manner and forward planning is much easier,” he says.
In fact, the joint development was so successful that IBS has now included the new advanced planning and forecasting functionality in the latest version of its software, IBS Enterprise 6.0 (formerly ASW).
“The choice of IBS software was pretty obvious. Orrefors Kosta Boda implemented IBS enterprise software, ASW, quite a number of years ago, and our company believes in using a complete solution that is fully integrated with all the business systems we use,” Johansson explains.
So what does the future hold for this centuries-old company?
“Developing an e-business service with IBS is something that we will be looking into very soon,” Johansson says.
text: Tsemaye Opubor Hambraeus
photo: Magnus Glans
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