Inventory control and management are vital to any business’s success, acting as the foundation for efficient operations and overall profitability. For manufacturers specifically, inventory represents a substantial investment, tying up valuable resources and storage space – not to mention the staff required to manage what goes in and what goes out. Maintaining optimal inventory levels is crucial, enabling manufacturers to fulfill customer commitments and efficiently carry out their core functions.

Inventory control is a core part of Virtek Vision’s customer-centric approach, and key to maintaining a competitive edge and a strong bottom line. Founded in 1986 in Waterloo, Ont., the company produces more than 1,000 precision laser projectors yearly, with the help of about 100 employees worldwide. About 50 per cent of Virtek Vision’s business is supplying laser projection parts and equipment to the aerospace industry, but the company also deals with construction, industrial fabrication, modular building, renewable energy and automotive verticals.

Another way that Virtek Vision meets the complex needs of their many high-profile clients, including top OEM aerospace manufacturers, Formula One, and large industrial fabricators, is with research and development, says Dietmar Wennemer, CEO. “A large percentage of our revenue goes back into technology that is helping our customers to produce their products,” Wennemer says, underscoring the importance of improved productivity and customer satisfaction. The intricate nature of Virtek Vision’s products requires the company’s staff to be well-versed in advanced engineering, with knowledge that trickles down into a positive user experience.

In pursuit of growth
With the constant push toward increased efficiencies, Wennemer says the company recognized a need for a holistic inventory management system. Facing challenges with an outdated enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and the need for better management and cost control, Virtek Vision sought out a new “There were too many manual process steps that were challenging because failures happened,” Wennemer says of their previous system that had become obsolete. “We had a lot of inventory counting steps that were costing us a day of downtime every month,” he adds.

In searching for a new ERP, the company prioritized a complete management solution, including hardware manufacturing, and tools to support inventory control and work orders. Planning, scheduling, licensing and supply chain management tools were of interest, too, Wennemer says. “The process was mainly driven by finance and operations, as well as sales, as we wanted to have a proper sales configurator and system,” he adds, noting the goal of tracking all items moved in and out of the warehouse through an ERP and avoiding manually counting things. “It was important that our manufacturing work was flawless, and that we have proper cost control . . . and real-time tracking.”

Evaluations started in spring 2022, and after selecting Epicor’s Kinetic cloud-based ERP, Virtek Vision worked with Six S Partners to successfully implement and deploy Kinetic. Located a short distance from Virtek Vision’s headquarters, Six S is a valuable partner for Virtek Vision.

“Their consultants and team could be on-site to help train our team, especially on the operation side,” Wennemer says of the changes in process. “When issues came up, the team was available to support us and [resolve] them.”

With an intuitive and configurable user experience, complete with learning tools embedded into the platform, Kinetic allows Virtek Vision’s team to enable real-time inventory visibility, and monitor the ripple effects that come with changes.

“If there are slight modifications to an order, we know how it impacts labor,” Wennemer says, noting how often hidden costs can creep in. “Now, when a work order is closed, we immediately know how many hours were consumed by the product.”

And, as Wennemer notes, the capability of connecting different sectors of their business, from finance and administration to the sales and service teams, including the platform’s integration with Salesforce, reduces manual errors and allows for greater efficiencies.

“I’m a big fan of automation,” he says. “If there is never a manual input entry in the system, [fewer] errors are happening, and that was the direction for the team.”

Fine-tuning for the future
Wennemer says the team is continuing to learn the system, and further improvements are implemented each day. Customizable dashboards allow the appropriate members of different departments to create the value and reports that are needed. Moving forward, processes will be adjusted and the Virtek Vision team will analyze the data provided by Kinetic, before using it to make decisions on the manufacturing floor.

The company is also investing in a vertical lift system, which Wennemer says will be tightly integrated with Kinetic to further improve inventory data and reduce counting hours, ultimately giving Virtek Vision’s key decision-makers better visibility into overall costs and profitability.

“Streamlining inventory management is so important,” Wennemer says, noting the high cost of some parts and components that Virtek Vision uses. “If it’s controlled by a system you can trust, that’s where the benefit is.”

Virtek Helps Bring Sustainable Space Tourism To Life

Space Perspective, the world’s only carbon-neutral luxury spaceflight experience company, is harnessing the power of Virtek’s Iris™ 3D Vision Positioning System (VPS) in the manufacture of its revolutionary Spaceship Neptune --a pressurized capsule propelled by a high-performance SpaceBalloon™ which takes explorers on a transformative journey to space without using rocket fuel or high G forces. 

En una sesión de preguntas y respuestas, el director general de Virtek Vision, Dietmar Wennemer, revela cómo las soluciones de proyección láser de la empresa ayudan a mejorar rápidamente la producción de piezas aeroespaciales.

Procesos como el corte, la colocación y el montaje en moldes pueden añadir un tiempo considerable a la producción de piezas de composite de carbono en aplicaciones aeroespaciales, sobre todo cuando se trata de estructuras grandes como las alas.

La plataforma de software Iris de Virtek, junto con el Sistema de Posicionamiento por Visión (VPS), permite a los operarios construir piezas de composite sin necesidad de utilizar voluminosas plantillas físicas que tienen que ser levantadas manualmente para ponerlas en el molde y sacarlas de él mientras el material de la capa se fija en su lugar. El sistema proyecta un contorno láser de la pieza o el material para guiar fácilmente al operario.

¡Celebrando 35 años en el negocio!

Nos gustaría dedicar un momento a expresar nuestro más sincero agradecimiento a nuestros clientes, proveedores y socios por contribuir a este éxito. 

#Celebrating35yrs

Nueva oferta de servicio de implementación disponible para los fabricantes de materiales compuestos a través de la asociación entre RUAG y Virtek

Virtek Vision, líder del mercado de soluciones de visión 3D basadas en láser, se complace en anunciar la formación de una asociación global con RUAG, socio tecnológico de las Fuerzas Armadas Suizas. RUAG está introduciendo una nueva oferta de servicios para los fabricantes del sector aeroespacial que utilizan sistemas Virtek. Asistirán a los usuarios en la creación de archivos de proyección, ya sea a partir de datos CAD existentes o mediante la digitalización de piezas físicas, para su uso en la aplicación de capas compuestas guiadas por láser, enmascaramiento de pintura, colocación de componentes y cientos de otras aplicaciones.