Magic Software helps window manufacturer MéO to control its business and move to Industry 4.0 with FactoryEye

” Today, thanks to the implementation of Magic Software’s solutions, we have much better control of our flows and real-time information which is very useful to optimize our production lines and improve our performance. ”

  Anthony Fèvre, IT Manager, MéO

About MéO

Creator of the wood-aluminum concept in 1983, MéO is the first manufacturer of custom-made, decorative, accessible, and efficient wood-aluminum joinery. Thanks to its in-house R&D design center, MéO has invented and patented a new concept of windows and sliding bays and offers a wide range of entrance doors and wood-aluminum canopies and verandas. 

MéO is part of the LIEBOT Group, which was founded in 1745 by Anselme Briand in the Vendée region of France. Over the years, it has never ceased to evolve, innovate, and invest – and has become France’s top manufacturer of windows and façades and one of the leading players in Europe.

Problem

Over time MéO’s ERP maintenance had become cumbersome – with interfaces to many systems and a wide range of corporate information stored in the system.  MéO needed to restructure its ERP setup to simplify the maintenance.

In addition, MéO wanted to modernize its production tools and equip its manufacturing workshops with the right management tools to improve performance.

Solution

Anthony Fèvre, MéO IT Manager, says: “MéO chose Magic Software during a visit to a trade show where we discovered their solution and were impressed by its ability to integrate and orchestrate flows, while at the same time offering great flexibility and improved data visibility.”

The Manufacturing-focused FactoryEye product combines Magic’s integration experience with intelligent production data processing, cross-organizational data contextualization, cloud storage, and advanced analytics to provide organizational intelligence and real-time insights for accelerating the evolution to a data-driven organization. All tools are provided in a platform agnostic common workspace. As a starter, FactoryEye ensures that the factory floor systems communicate with the organization’s IT tools to create a crucial bridge between the IT teams and operations.

MéO mapped all existing flows within its many applications and transferred its technical and customer data to dedicated systems. MéO also set up workshops to see how to integrate their flows via Magic’s integration module. Internal training sessions were soon organized to enable the IT teams to become proficient and fully autonomous with the Magic solution. Two sessions were held, the first at the end of 2019 and another at the beginning of 2020, during which the first flows relating to customer data were deployed.

Anthony Fèvre explains: “Customer data is everywhere, in all our applications, but in this particular case, we decided to give priority to the ERP in terms of updating processes and data visibility. It is very important to define the direction of the flows and where the ‘master data’ is located – and this has to be done at each deployment. Therefore, it was important for us to be able to master the solution internally and only call on Magic Software’s expert consultants for new projects”.

The next step included the flows relating to product items, orders, production, lifecycle management, and, finally, delivery management.

The second stage of the project involved the implementation of the Magic Software FactoryEye MES module

Anthony Fèvre explains: “This second stage aimed to modernize our production sites and move towards 4.0 type workshops. To do this, we asked Magic Software to carry out a proof of concept for our ‘window’ business. At the end of this test, which took place between January and April 2021, we went directly into production on one of our sites based on an annual contract with a SaaS model. 

Since then, MéO has continued to develop the platform by organizing weekly technical committees, that supervise the manufacturing workshops ensuring that the right real-time decisions are made, and that productivity improves.

In July 2021, a second and broader POC was carried which led to the signing of an agreement for all production sites, with around thirty machines.

Benefits

As Anthony Fèvre defines: “Today, thanks to the implementation of Magic Software’s solutions, we have much better control of our flows and have real-time information that is very useful for optimizing our production lines and improving our performance. We have also improved collaborative efficiency and intend to use a single portal for all the group’s entities”. 

Eric Choppe, Managing Director France and Southern Europe of Magic Software, summarizes: “The IT projects carried out by the LIEBOT Group over the last 3 years demonstrate the importance of good control of its data, both that of the IT systems and operations – with monitoring and decision-making tools improving factory management. We are pleased to be able to support them in these various challenges by providing them with reliable solutions and greater efficiency.”