How Neotiss digitalizes its industrial know-how to control information distribution

Presentation of the company

Business sector: manufacture of steel tubes, pipes, hollow sections and related accessories.

Country: 🇫🇷

NEOTISS is an international group present in 4 countries: France, USA, China and India. In France, the Venarey-les-Laumes site has been manufacturing high quality pipes for various sectors (nuclear, domestic, etc.) since 1976.

Context: Digitizing industrial know-how to control the dissemination of information

Historically established in the nuclear sector, Neotiss offers very high quality pipes that meet very strict requirements and constraints.

The objective of Mercateam 's implementation was to digitalize all industrial know-how in order to better anticipate the loss of skills and authorizations, and to ensure better monitoring and dissemination of information on site. To meet this challenge, Neotiss set itself three main objectives:

1. Quickly identify holes in the system and anticipate the loss of 100% of skills and authorizations on site;
2. Standardize the process of dissemination and management of training content;
3. Reduce the administrative burden on production teams.

Irritants encountered:

The Neotiss-Venarey les Laumes site has 120 employees. The site is organized in 3 production halls and around 7 production lines, all arranged in length, more adapted to the realization of pipes.

At Neotiss, the management of skills, authorizations and training is largely done on Excel or paper. Information is managed between the production teams, quality and HR. It is therefore complicated for team leaders to have visibility on employees who do not belong to their teams or on the follow-up of training courses in general. In addition, the monitoring of skills and authorizations is essentially done from the top.

NEOTISS wanted to set up Mercateam to respond to 3 major irritants:

1. Lack of monitoring of information dissemination: On site, employees need to be aware of several documents in order to work on the job. Unfortunately, the follow-up of the distribution of instructions at the workstation is very complex to date, especially when these contents are updated;
2. No real time tracking of skills & clearances: Skills and authorizations are tracked on Excel by team leaders. Information is not shared between operational staff and support functions;
3. Semi-automatic assignment of employees on the schedule: Schedules are made on Excel and printed in the corridors. A lot of information is retained in the head of the production manager and a lot of time is spent on low value-added tasks (internal coordination, search for the right skills, etc.) during the production planning process.

Mercateam's mission

In order to help Neotiss teams achieve the above-mentioned objectives, we have carried out the following projects:

1. The implementation of Mercateam for :
   • Eliminate 100% of Excel & paper files related to skills management, authorizations and training follow-up;
   • Digitize 100% of the skills and authorizations on site;
   • Digitize 100% of the CTSE and Operating Procedures;
   • Perform semi-automated scheduling of on-site employees;
2. The training of production teams, supervisors and HR on the mastery of the Mercateam tool;
3. Mass integration of the CTSE and operating procedures and structuring of the documents in the tool.

Results

Saving operational time on administrative tasks (with low added value)

• 1 semi-automated global schedule used by 100% of team leaders from production teams;
• Saves time during the planning process (duplication, real-time monitoring of skills and authorizations, etc.);

Unified and structured document management

• 800 documents digitized in less than 3 weeks with Mercateam;

Mastering industrial know-how and anticipating business risks

• Notification of expiry of clearances & competencies up to 3 months in advance;
• Centralized monitoring of data related to skills & authorizations (site / sector / team KPI feedback).