Production process

Assembly and production processes

Process management geared entirely to your production

Production and assembly are among the central work steps in every manufacturing company. However, they can always stutter if the processes are not harmoniously integrated into the overall production context. For example, output is lower than expected or waiting times occur.

It is therefore important to harmonize these processes with all upstream and downstream steps. This requires not only the all-important technical know-how, but also a holistic view of all processes associated with production. For example, numerous technical aspects are essential for the powder coating process. However, many other parameters also play an important role in the effective and uninterrupted use of your capacities: What is the optimum batch size? What is the best sequence of work steps for color changes? All of this must be taken into account when designing systems and then in production planning and control during operation.

Another example is cycle assembly: How should the assembly processes be designed here? How can the cycle times for the individual assembly steps be coordinated in such a way that the transitions can be carried out with minimal inventories and at the same time the assembly is always evenly utilized? With our wealth of experience from various industries, we can help you to integrate such processes smoothly across the entire process chain and design them in such a way that they are robust and less susceptible to faults. This allows you to exploit the full potential of your production and assembly processes.

Our service packages:

• Optimize production processes in manufacturing and assembly
• Select an ideal production and assembly concept
• Identify technical parameters and framework conditions
• Determine necessary interfaces in the overall context of production
• Analyze requirements for the individual interfaces
• Integrate all processes into the process chain in the best possible way

Your benefit:

1. Ensuring a technically sensible process design
2. Cost efficiency through lean, harmonized processes
3. Inventory optimization
4. Optimized production and assembly concept

Support processes

Optimally coordinated support for your production

Toolmaking, maintenance and cleaning services are essential – no factory operation can run smoothly if the classic support processes from the workshop to facility management do not work. These areas can even seriously hinder production and assembly processes, whether due to a lack of communication and digitalization, inconsistent interfaces or standards.

We approach our optimization strategy from two directions at the same time: On the one hand, we are happy to advise you on how you can align the supporting services even better with your core processes. To this end, we use our expertise in operational excellence to ensure that internal departmental processes are properly aligned. On the other hand, we look at your entire value stream and set up suitable interfaces with which the different areas can be harmonized.

We also look at the optimization potential of the supporting areas themselves. How can the best possible results be achieved from their capacity? How can work in the support processes be made more efficient and transparent using suitable digital tools? This also makes it possible to use predictive maintenance based on live data to identify at an early stage when a machine needs to be repaired or even replaced – even before disruptions to operations actually occur.

Our service packages:

• Improve operational processes in toolmaking, maintenance and facility management
• Analysis of your entire production system to better harmonize core and support processes
• Improve capacity planning
• Digitize support processes

Your benefit:

1. Increased efficiency in the supporting areas
2. Less silo thinking; harmonized operating processes with tailored interfaces instead
3. Transparency and lean processes through digitalization
4. Better planning capability

Process transparency

Gain insight, maintain an overview

What is the current status of a particular order that is in production? What delays are there in the production process that could be rectified? Many companies struggle with the fact that such questions cannot be answered immediately and that there is a lack of transparency in the processes.

Such information deficits – for example about waiting and delivery times – can regularly lead to increased costs, delays in customer deliveries and other processes coming to a standstill. On the other hand, greater transparency ensures more flexible reactions, more satisfied customers and enables predictive maintenance, for example, so that unplanned disruptions occur less frequently overall. In other words, instead of reactively fighting trouble spots, you will be able to proactively and preventively identify potential improvements and risks before they occur.

However, the goal of process transparency can only be achieved with a data strategy tailored to your needs. We bring experience from many different companies and processes and work with you to select which data needs to be collected at which points and to what extent, so that you get a clear picture of what is going on in your factory. With automated, personalized dashboards and reports, you always have a clear overview; communication concepts such as store floor management ensure that all employees can use the collected information productively to improve their work.

We strive for a presentation in which the decisive data is immediately visible and understandable for all those involved. With this process transparency, you are excellently prepared for the challenges of Industry 4.0. It enables in-depth analyses through process mining as well as detailed planning and control with a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) and even the automation of decisions.

Our service packages:

• Develop and implement a data strategy for your operations
• Create dashboards and communication concepts based on live company data
• Carry out value stream mapping and design
• Derive risks and potential for improvement

Your benefit:

1. Structured, meaningful live data
2. Clear communication and presentation of data and findings
3. Transparent, data-based insight into your processes at all times
4. Potentials and risks can be identified preventively
5. Process transparency as the basis for software selection and implementation

Automation

Automation is not an end in itself

High process reliability, accelerated processes, fewer personnel requirements with an acute shortage of skilled workers: there are many good reasons for industrial automation. If it can be implemented in such a way that the quality of the products remains high, high customer requirements can still be satisfied with reduced labor costs.

Nevertheless, it is important to check exactly where automation makes sense and how far it should go. Fully automated processes can also mean that you are less flexible in certain circumstances – and this should of course be avoided. In direct consultation with you, we determine the optimum balance between automation and manual intervention for your needs – so that you can deploy your qualified employees in the right place! The end result should be a strategically oriented automation roadmap that prepares you for the future.

To do this, we first carry out a comprehensive analysis of your manual processes. For those activities where potential for improvement can be identified, we develop technological solutions together with your employees. We then carry out a benefit analysis in order to compare the possible automation measures with the manual work in technical and economic terms and to define an optimal target process on this basis. Our goal: optimum interaction between man and machine. To achieve this, we accompany you through the entire project phase and implementation so that the machines are ideally integrated into your processes. We are also happy to support you in optimizing processes in existing systems.

Our service packages:

• Optimum degree of automation tailored to your production and logistics
• Efficient deployment of your employees through automation of repetitive tasks
• Increasing the attractiveness of the workplace
• Reduce costs and increase quality at the same time
• Competitive advantage through technology leadership
• Strategic focus on future developments

Your benefit:

1. Optimum degree of automation tailored to your production and logistics
2. Efficient deployment of your employees through automation of repetitive tasks
3. Increasing the attractiveness of the workplace
4. Reduce costs and increase quality at the same time
5. Competitive advantage through technology leadership
6. Strategic focus on future developments

Technology portfolio

A clear view of your technologies

Do you know exactly which technologies are used in the various departments of your company? Maintaining an overview here is a major challenge that only a few companies manage. What is the maintenance status of the various machines?

The problem with this is that without a clear overview of your machinery, you lack a truly sound basis for making important decisions: Which repairs, which new purchases are necessary? Which technologies may be outdated? With our tried-and-tested concepts for managing your technology portfolio, we can help you create transparency. Together with your experts, we develop an overview of the machines and systems used and supplement this in a structured way with information on procurement, maintenance, technology and HSSE (Health, Safety, Security & Environment).

This provides you with an overview of the status quo and gives you the opportunity to compare your portfolio with the current state of technological development and make future-oriented assessments. From this, we work with you to derive recommendations as to where investments can or should be made.

Our service packages:

• Building a suitable technology portfolio
• Evaluating existing technologies with a view to the future
• Compare and evaluate technology portfolio with the current state of the art in a future-oriented manner
• Developing decision-making aids
• Derive recommendations for investment decisions

Your benefit:

1. Transparency about technologies used in the company
2. Increased efficiency in all core areas
3. Clear classification of own technologies in comparison with the latest developments
4. Data-driven basis for future-oriented investment decisions

Simulation

Create a transparent basis for decision-making

Companies are constantly faced with forward-looking decisions, the consequences of which can quickly become highly complex. Customer requirements are increasing, cost pressure is growing – at the same time, dynamic external and internal factors must be taken into account before any action is taken and, of course, the operational process should be disturbed or even interrupted as little as possible by changes. It is very difficult to keep an abstract overview of the complex dependencies in your production facilities – this is where digital simulations can help to realistically map the effects of certain decisions in advance.

With the help of innovative software such as PlantSim or Anylogic, we are happy to support you in overcoming these challenges. A simulation of individual areas or the entire process chain makes it possible to create an objective, well-founded basis for planning and decision-making at low cost, without having to intervene in the running, real system.

This allows you to identify potential risks at an early stage and significantly shorten planning processes. The simulation concept that we develop for you is also scalable to larger contexts and can therefore be used by you for further studies without your employees having to undergo extensive training in the systems. The simulations ensure that you are able to react quickly to complex problems and make well-founded, holistic decisions when it comes to designing highly dynamic systems and networks. The approach is suitable both for greenfield planning of completely new systems and for optimizing existing process chains.

Our service packages:

• Analyze the initial situation
• Concretize the problem
• Determine relevant influencing variables
• Define scenarios to be analyzed
• Perform simulation using state-of-the-art software
• Interpret results by comparing the simulation result with the original problem
• Derive recommendations for action and transfer them to the reality of the company
• Optimize material flow, resource utilization and logistics chains at all levels

Your benefit:

1. Many years of experience from diverse production, logistics and supply chain projects
2. Identification of bottlenecks, optimal capacities and underutilization
3. Sound basis for investment decisions and ensuring the quality and cost-effectiveness of your solution
4. Scenarios can be tested without interfering with ongoing operations or requiring familiarization with new software
5. Risk minimization and quantification of improvement measures
6. Scalable simulation concept for further studies

What is meant by a production process?

A production process is a defined sequence of work steps in which a finished product is created from certain raw materials, base materials and preliminary products or individual parts in their raw state through processing – whether by machine or manually. Production processes are generally standardized so that the end products can be manufactured in a short time and with reliably consistent quality right up to product release.

What is part of the production process?

In the above definition, the production process includes all work steps that are carried out at one or more production sites and that lead step by step to the finished product. If production processes are carried out at several locations, they are also referred to as production networks; in these cases, logistical factors also play a major role.