Hulett Aluminium Becomes First South African Customer

's-Hertogenbosch, October 16, 2006 – Quintiq has announced that Hulett Aluminium (Pty) Limited has signed a license and consultancy agreement to implement the Quintiq Company Planner Solution at its Pietermaritzburg plant in Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa. The challenge facing Hulett Aluminium was to ensure the steady flow of metal from its Hot Mills through its downstream processes. The planning process needed to synchronize the requirements of all production units effectively, catering for their specific needs and output targets in order to serve their various market sectors. Quintiq’s Advanced Planning Solution will support this process, in particular capacity and workflow planning.

Serving customers both in the local market and worldwide, the Hulett Aluminium plant has melt/cast facilities, two hot mills, three cold mills and offers a wide range of finishing processes. “Quintiq has an excellent reputation and compelling experience in the aluminium rolling industry. With the implementation of the Quintiq system, we expect to increase our output levels and improve consistency ,” says Doug Timmerman, Operations Director at Hulett.

The processing of rolled aluminum products requires planning of various production flows such as casting, hot-rolling, cold-rolling, and finishing to be both flexible and transparent.

The Quintiq Company Planner maps each planning action including specifications, delivery due dates, constraints and shifting bottlenecks, as well as planners’ decisions and their consequences. With the Quintiq solution it will be possible to increase productivity and reduce inventories by optimizing resource utilization, improve delivery performance by reducing lead times and achieve consistent delivery dates. The solution takes changes in production, e.g., shutdowns and maintenance work, into account and allows real-time reporting and analysis of KPIs. In addition, it saves time in developing or adapting plans and offers the modelling of “what if?” scenarios.

Victor Allis, CEO of Quintiq is confident that Company Planner will drive the ‘Steady-flow’ planning at Hulett Aluminium to new heights. "Hulett’s decision to implement Quintiq confirms our expertise in Advanced Planning & Scheduling solutions for the aluminium industry. We are delighted to announce that Hulett is our first customer in Africa,” he comments.

About Hulett Aluminium
Hulett Aluminium (Pty) Limited is an independent aluminium semi-fabricator, based in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. It is changing the competitive landscape in the industry, offering new standards of customer service excellence. Hulett Aluminium continues to grow its output of high specification products through the full utilisation of its state-of-the-art equipment and has ISO 9000:2000/ TS16949, Lloyds, RVA, SANAS, DNV and ABS accreditation. The company does business in more than 50 countries.

About Quintiq
Quintiq provides advanced planning, scheduling and supply chain management solutions. The fast-growing Dutch company, established in 1997, offers software for planning, optimizing and automating complex business processes throughout the enterprise. Deloitte has recognized Quintiq as being one of the fastest growing technology companies in Europe, and Gartner has acknowledged Quintiq for its innovative products and market presence. The company has its head office in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands, and has subsidiaries in Germany, UK, Malaysia and the USA. Quintiq is certified for SAP Powered by NetWeaver. For more information: www.quintiq.com.

For further information please contact:
Quintiq
Martijn van Gils
Marketing Director
Tel. +31 (0)73 6910739
E-mail: martijn.van.gils@quintiq.com