Manufacturing
Case Study

Panthera optimises the efficiency of ATP processes

The company

Founded in Modena in 1975 as a technical products retailer, ATP started designing customised solutions in rubber and plastic in the late 1980s, thus initiating its transformation from a commercial to a manufacturing company. Today, the company has more than 45 years of experience, 3 production sites and more than 80 employees. Thanks to its constant focus on research, technologies and training, and its strong investment in Industry 4.0 - in the two-year period 2017/2018 alone, ATP allocated more than 2 million euros for plant expansion and innovation and set aside 3,000 hours for training in 2018 alone - it has established itself as one of the leading Italian companies in the field of design and production of custom-made industrial sealing systems. Highly flexible technologies such as turning, milling, water-jet cutting and moulding have enabled the company to gain experience in a wide range of sectors, including food&beverage, pharmaceuticals, packaging, hydraulics, construction machinery, railways, shipbuilding, automotive, aeronautics and oil&gas.

Reasons for the change

The need to replace the previous software, based on AS/400 architecture and always appreciated for its reliability, arose in 2014 when the system started to become obsolete. ATP was looking for a tool with the same level of reliability, but capable of offering innovation, functional completeness and potential for development.

Why Panthera

This choice considered not only the product itself, but also reliability of the partner. In particular, Panthera is an innovative and yet reliable and well-established tool, with great functional completeness and able to grow in step with the company, featuring everything needed to support international relationships. On the partner side, the company has chosen a manufacturer able to invest, with a network of certified local partners, but with guarantees direct support and care from the headquarters

Results

Adopting Panthera has enabled ATP to improve the service it offers its customers. A case in point is food certification, for which the previous system provided management of codes but not of batches, thus requiring the use of notes on production orders and tags in storage locations. However, the new European MOCA regulation, also known as 1935/2004, has made the traceability of every object and material in contact with foodstuffs compulsory, including - as an example - many of the gaskets made. Today, thanks to Panthera, ATP is able to trace the origin code of the semi-finished products used in the production of the batch with just a few clicks, which is automatically marked both on the shipping documents and packaging labels accompanying our products. The tangible results, in terms of tracking and traceability, management of various units with coordinated and transparent processes, optimisation of handling and real-time cost control, have enabled management to put Panthera at the heart of the processes, constantly optimising efficiency and investing in organisation and computerisation. Thanks to the gradual computerisation of processes and functions, the initial 15 users have now grown to more than 50, in addition to the production operatives.

Future Objectives

ATP is now equipped with most of Panthera's modules, but the investment will not stop as new modules and functions are being developed all the time. An Advanced Logistics project is planned for the immediate future, and once again Panthera can offer an integrated WMS module.