Production Manager at CGR International
How CGR International eliminated structural delays, cut planning time by 5 to 10 hours per week, and gave every team member real-time visibility over production.
About
CGR International
A global specialist in cold forming, overmolding and mechatronics, CGR International designs and manufactures springs, mechanical components and mechatronic sub-assemblies for the most demanding industries.
The group serves markets with strict quality and throughput requirements: aerospace, automotive, electrical engineering, medical and industrial applications.
In an environment of growing complexity (expanding part references, tightening customer requirements, pressure on lead times), optimizing production planning has become a strategic lever to sustain growth and meet customer commitments.
Over 50 years of expertise in cold forming
Plants across 4 continents
5 markets: aerospace, automotive, electrical engineering, medical, industrial
Impact
The story
CGR International is an industrial subcontractor specializing in precision machining. For years, their production planning relied on aging Excel files and Access databases built by long-tenured employees who knew the company inside out. When those people left, the system collapsed. Planning decisions made on Monday were already wrong by Wednesday. Delays were a permanent feature of daily operations. Then they decided to rebuild their planning system from scratch and adopt Oplit. The results have been transformational.
The challenge
Before Oplit, CGR International operated with multiple Excel files and custom Access databases built over the years by people who had been with the company for 20 years. These systems were obsolete but irreplaceable. Planning decisions made on Monday were often wrong by Wednesday or Thursday. With no shared, real-time source of truth, each disruption such as a customer emergency, a machine breakdown, or a missing component turned the day into a battle against chaos. The most striking symptom: a decade ago, CGR had 50% more staff to generate 50% less revenue, while still running behind schedule. Their key customer had effectively taken over their shopfloor priorities.
Oplit's approach
The transformation at CGR did not start with a tool change. It was part of a broader project to decentralize decision-making: give the right people the right information at the right time, instead of funneling everything through a single overloaded planner. Oplit plugged directly into this initiative. By connecting in real time to their ERP, Oplit provided a single, always-updated source of truth across all manufacturing orders, workcenter availability, subcontracting lead times, and production progress. What previously required hours of manual updates now happened automatically.
Three capabilities made the biggest difference in daily operations. First, full visibility: knowing exactly where each manufacturing order stands, including quantity, time, and subcontracting status, all in one view. Second, workload balancing: the ability to instantly see how a new order impacts workcenter utilization for the week. A 3-hour job can be slotted between existing orders. A 40-hour job immediately flags that an operator will be fully occupied. Third, capacity simulation: when a decision needs to be made such as adding a temp worker, moving an operator between workcenters, or prioritizing an urgent order, managers test it in Oplit first. Once all decisions are validated, the simulation becomes the target plan.
One of the most unexpected outcomes was organizational autonomy. Teams at CGR can now work directly on their orders without waiting for a central planning meeting. The daily production meeting, one of the most time-consuming and least efficient rituals in most factories, has become largely unnecessary because everyone can see the same real-time information. Planning has become a distributed process where each workshop manager and team leader can make informed decisions independently.
