SAP & Industry 4.0:
Operating Data from Production directly available in SAP
Results of the Project
“Our new MES system lays the foundation for the successful future of Vorwerk Autotec. Improving transparency in production, the value chain, and logistics is the basis for future productivity increases. Key components of the system include: real-time data in SAP ERP, reduction (elimination) of manual posting processes, high automation, and consistent design of the system for global use.”
Dennis Dünnweg, Project Manager, Vorwerk Autotec
Vorwerk
The whole story
Vorwerk – The Customer
Worldwide , renowned carmakers rely on quality products from Vorwerk & Sohn . As leading innovator in suspension technology , system components and materials ,Vorwerk & Sohn provides customers with solutions that are ahead of their time . First-class products – this is the goal of the Vorwerk & Sohn group . The requirements of the automobile manufacturers set the benchmarks for the company.
As part of the Vorwerk & Sohn group, Vorwerk Autotec is specialized in the development and production of high quality chassis bearings for the automotive industry . The quality of materials used and their processing in production are their main focus.
The Challenge: At a glance
Vorwerk – The challenge
Bodywork transition and pass-through elements, tubes for ventilation or liquids, these are the products of Vorwerk Autotec. The components are manufactured in Germany, China, Mexico and Poland. International production locations facilitate cost-efficient and rapid execution of customer projects.
Vorwerk Autotec production processes were not completely optimized yet. As there were only a few pieces of real-time data available from production, neither the current status of production was completely accessible nor was process data.
The opportunities of real-time production data analysis and calculation in SAP have not been used so far. Postings of activities and material stocks have been processed with delay.
Vorwerk
Integration of BDE platform with SAP within 6 Months
Vorwerk– The Project
This was about to change by connecting the MES platform from Global C Software, which collected production data from 135 machines, to SAP ERP in real time.
The goal of the project: to make more effective use of the capabilities of both systems. In addition to increased transparency, targeted analysis as well as a further automation of production processes should be implemented. About 1000 containers for production supply and production disposal are transported between stock and production every day by forklifts. There are ca. 40.000 accounting transactions for material movement in manufacturing, mostly in one-piece-flow. These material movements and production processes as well as production execution were planned to be optimized and accelerated.
Most of the tasks occur on the central SAP ERP system. In addition to warehouse management and inventory management, SAP also processes disposition and production supply. All information will be stored and evaluated here. That means, that requirements planning and postings of material movements are processed directly in SAP. Master data, components, order data, process data and packing instructions are maintained directly in SAP as well. This data is provided for the MES platform.
The plant control ensures an automated production and detailed planning, and it assumes responsibility for planning of production orders. All operating data will be recorded during production and reported to the SAP system. By relyingon packing instructions from SAP, the MES also controls the packing of products and finally creates the corresponding SAP handling units (HU).
In addition, the MES interface is monitored and checked by a monitor in SAP. Vorwerk Autotec is able to check, correct and even restart the data exchange. So the data transfer between both systems as well as efficient usage of the collected operating data is assured.
The requirements planning of Vorwerk Autotec is processed directly and only in SAP. Planned orders for manufacturing are generated, disposed, automatically released and transferred to the MES system as planned manufacturing orders for detailed machine scheduling. In addition to the order header, BOM (bill of material), working plan and packing instructions are also part of the transferred order data.
Subsequently a production planner performs the detailed planning of production orders directly in the MES system before dispatching them to the production lines. There is the possibility to sort all production orders on the basis of certain parameters like “start date”, “end date” or “priority”.
The required components are determined based on th production orders. At the beginning of the manufacturing process, the employee can now request the supply of components from the warehouse in the MES-System. After data transfer, the allocation of components then takes place in the warehouse-solution in SAP ERP.
Noteworthy at Vorwerk Autotec: the supply of production is controlled by the containers used (Kanban). At the beginning of production, not the total amount of components is supplied; instead, a 2-container-system is used. If a container is empty, the next container will be requested. This happens automatically. Data will be transferred to SAP for the transaction by transfer requirements for replenishment. The MES can inform the SAP-system about when and where a new container delivery to a machine has to be mande. The SAP system calculates how many containers are needed for the production based on the production data.
Another highlight is the batch management in combination with the MES system. The batch information is defined through the arrival process and can be read by container in SAP by the MES system. At any time, the MES can retrieve data concerning the batch, the quantity and the material type for any containers on the machine from SAP.
If there isn´t a follow-up order planned, the employee will clear his place on the machine after completion of the order. Components that were not needed to complete the order will be transferred back to stock – the transaction is processed in SAP WM.
The most important feature of the new solution is the recording of operating data on machine level by the MES system. The amount of goods produced and the production time of the individual products were recorded, confirmed and transmitted in real time to SAP to be available for further analysis.
In addition to time recording per employee or production step,the machine changes within a working shift are recorded as well as the machine data like time of use and production time. The activity posting in SAP is done based in real values from the respective machine, including data like setup time, machine time and personal time data.
Every component usage and every finished part is posted by the MES to SAP as well. Stock depletions are posted based on actual quantities, stock ingress is posted based on confirmed quantities. In the confirmation postings, the system differentiates between yield, scrap and rework.
On the one hand, these real-time production data establishes transparency and an overview about the production status. On the other hand, the captured data allows actual analysis and calculations in SAP about efficiency, user behavior, service, time of non-use, etc…
At the end of production the produced materials were packed hierarchically by the employee, for example: pieces in a box and the box on a skid. This packaging in handling units (HU) is controlled by the MES system, packing instructions from the SAP-system are considered.
After completion of the packaging process the packing structure will be transferred to the SAP system. There, the HUs will be created and embedded or rather they are going directly to the sending. Also the packaging materials will be collected as an extra position in the HU.
Increased transparency in production at Vorwerk Autotec
The rollout of the solution happened step by step. At first, the PDC interface was realized at the location in Wuppertal. Afterwards, the optimizations were rolled out and adapted to the regional specifications at the locations in Brodniza (Poland) and Suzhou (China).
Dennis Dünnweg, project manager at Vorwerk, is more than satisfied with the results of the project:
“With this project, Vorwerk Autotec has taken a big step towards Industry 4.0”
