OAO Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) and GMCS announced the launch of a project that aims to introduce a production and economic planning system at MMK; the system is to be based on JDA Software Group, Inc.-designed JDA® Supply Chain Planner solution.

‘MMK’s new project is targeted at enhancing the efficiency of our sales and production planning. The innovations provided by the project will improve both our order portfolio and the range of products in accordance with our current and prospective production and logistics options,’ the company reports.

A JDA Supply Chain Planner-based pilot model was designed prior to the launch of the project to let MMK gauge the solution’s potential as to improving Russia’s largest metallurgical enterprise’s production activity. GMCS, which presented its model in the course of a tender, was finally chosen by MMK as a partner to work with on the development of the company’s production and economic planning system.

The system in question is to be introduced by stages. At the moment, MMK and GMCS project teams are busy designing the system that is expected to undergo pilot production launch in July 2011, on Metallurgist’s Day.

‘The company’s key development challenges are expanding the range of products on offer, breaking into new sales and supply markets, and making maximum profit. Integrating our purchase, production, transportation, sales, and finance planning into a single model will help reach all of these goals. The introduction of a special JDA Supply Chain Planner-based planning system is expected both to decrease the business expansion risks and to bring the existing planning practices to an essentially new and better level,’ says MMK acting Strategic Development Director Andrei Yeremin.

‘This JDA Supply Chain Planner software solution has earned a great reputation on the world and Russian metallurgical markets. The use of the tools it offers means companies get great opportunities to improve on the planning quality, to make their production processes along the entire chain more transparent, to come up with more efficient estimates of the products’ prime cost, and to get a better order portfolio and a more competitive product range,’ head of GMCS SCM division Vitaly Solodovnikov notes.

‘We are happy to see that MMK has chosen JDA solutions to enhance the efficiency of its production and economic planning, and we hope that our expertise will help MMK in the implementation of its long-term plans,’ EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) JDA Software Senior Vice President Razat Gaurav observes.