From Excel spreadsheets to real-time production planning
UTU is a Finnish family company founded in 1919, now run by the fourth generation. The company has manufactured electrical switchboards since 1944. Today the UTU Group operates in six countries: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, and Denmark. It employs 210 people and generates EUR 75 million in revenue. Switchboards and switchgear are built at the Ulvila factory, where around 60 operators make products for the entire arc of electricity distribution, from standard boards to large project deliveries such as park transformer substations and medium-voltage switchgear. The broad product range makes production planning a central part of the factory’s everyday work.
When spreadsheets were no longer enough
Before SkyPlanner, production planning ran on department-specific, self-modeled Excel spreadsheets. There was no dedicated production planning system in place. Information did not always move fast enough between the manually updated spreadsheets and the ERP system, and transparency was missing. When the production sequence changed in the ERP, the update did not always reach the shop floor, so jobs could end up being done in an unfavorable order. Manual updating also carried the risk of human error.
Every morning, about an hour was spent in production confirming what to do and in what order. Delivery dates and quality have always been a key internal driver for UTU, and promises made to customers were kept. Keeping them, however, required flexibility: changes and rearrangements were made along the way, because realistic capacity was hard to see without real-time information.
Flexibility decided the choice
The push for change came from an ERP project. When UTU moved to Oracle NetSuite, it became clear that there was no production scheduling system integrated with the ERP. The ERP consulting firm brought three options to the comparison, and UTU chose SkyPlanner. The decisive factors were flexibility and modularity.
We can shape the system to fit our production model and decide on our production groups modularly, without constantly relying on the vendor.
SkyPlanner went live in September 2025, and the rollout went smoothly. Data was made to flow between the systems easily, which was a positive surprise for Kalliomäki compared to other ERP projects. User testing started with the factory’s most experienced crew, and encouraged by the positive feedback, the system was rolled out across the entire production. The installers have praised the user interface in particular.
AI schedules, Gantt shows
Today SkyPlanner is integrated with Oracle NetSuite and the payroll system, and it unites all the lines and departments of the Ulvila factory in one system. Order data flows from the ERP straight to production, and the same up-to-date information is available to everyone.
As the most important feature, Kalliomäki highlights the combination of the Gantt timeline and SkyPlanner’s AI-powered automatic scheduling: the plan and the actuals are visible in the same visual view, and the front-page capacity and load graphs support day-to-day control. The speed of the system has also been a surprise. When the production sequence updates, the new work queue is with the installers on the line in seconds.
SkyPlanner has taken our production planning from Excel spreadsheets to real-time production optimization. We see capacity, load, and the work sequence at a glance, so we can make decisions based on real-time data.
Certainty across the supply chain
SkyPlanner has brought certainty and transparency to production planning. Precise completion dates and plans tie production and the rest of the supply chain more tightly together. Around two hours of working time is saved every week now that spreadsheets are no longer updated by hand.
The biggest benefit shows in project products such as park transformer substations and medium-voltage switchgear. Jobs can be scheduled more precisely, and factors affecting capacity, such as sick leaves, can be taken into account in the long-term plan.
In projects the advantage becomes very concrete: we can plan over the long term and schedule work precisely for the installers.
During the first year of use, downtime has also decreased, and more gets done with the existing capacity as the order of work is optimized.
Reported results
- 2 h of working time saved every week
- New work queue reaches production in seconds
- Certainty and transparency in production planning
- More precise scheduling of project deliveries
- All lines and departments in one system
- Less downtime
An electrifier in the fourth generation
UTU has been electrifying Finland for more than a hundred years, and the group is now growing in six countries. Real-time production planning at the Ulvila factory gives that growth a solid foundation, and going forward, UTU is evaluating extending the SkyPlanner integration to other systems as well.
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