Enlarge: Production staff in the quality control of a wire

What were the challenges to be solved and what specific benefits were achieved?

It was necessary for the project to bring all employees up to the required level of knowledge and to change some decades-old processes. The production environment, in which the solution was to be implemented, consisted of many different machines with years of manuracturing between 1911 and 2017. These had to be brought to a similar technical level for system integration with pragmatic solutions. Sometimes this called for massive interventions in function and design to allow a gradual integration into the overall concept.

The work did not rely on known or standard industry 4.0 solutions. The concrete motives for moving ahead with this project stemmed from the economic need for solutions for more stable and better product quality, better traceability and customer requirements for ultra-fine wires with very tight tolerances in the specification.

"Ten years ago, we had a vision for easy production monitoring for our wire manufacturing. Thanks to the dedication of all employees, this has become something that is much better and much more comprehensive in its functionality than we had ever imagined." Ute Poerschke, Managing Director

How can the Industrie 4.0 approach be described?

Since a wire cannot identify itself with e.g. an RFID chip or a QR code, the basis of the overall solution is an identification of the spools used. Using a QR code, machines, tools and products are identified along the entire value chain and recorded in a central database. In addition, there is the recording of all production parameters and quality data, which are assigned to the respective spool. The software and associated database is an sql-based solution on an internal server system.

What could be achieved?

Today, the software manages the entire warehousing, production and quality controls in wire production. The available data can be used at any time at the push of a button to calculate a tax-assessed valuated stock. The deviations are demonstrably in the range below one per thousand. This also provides cost transparency for each delivery, which can easily determine the profitability of a customer transaction. On the quality side, full traceability is provided and evaluations quickly determine the potential for optimization and continuous improvement. Easily identifying capacity bottlenecks and the resulting support for investment decisions are additional benefits.

What measures have been taken to achieve the solution?

Together with the company IPC Klaus Mauderer, the software was defined in small steps over several years, extensively tested and then implemented step by step. As a result, the experience and wishes of the company's internal users as well as customer requirements could be incorporated at any time. The required sensors, measuring devices and peripheral hardware were selected jointly by both companies under cost-optimal aspects and integrated into the overall system. The manufacturing machines, and in particular their controls, were modernized by the in-house engineering department and equipped with everything needed to enable direct communication with the software and the server.

What can others learn from it?

The most important building block to success was the willingness of employees to accept and apply the new processes. The facilitation in daily work has helped to strengthen the commitment of the employees in the optimization and further development of the overall solution. However, ongoing in-house training was required - in particular, the skills taught in the production technologist's training profession are a great help in this area of work. Throughout the entire project, it was helpful for all stakeholders (employees, project managers and management) to develop a far-reaching vision in a comparatively small company. The following procedure of implementation in small manageable steps, has made it possible to check the achieved results regularly and then define the next steps on this basis - if necessary with adaptions or redefinitions of the original approach. Thus, no frustration arose, scope creep was avoided and advantages of process improvements were always promptly available.