- 31st July 2020
- Exhibitor Announcements, Manufacturing, Southern
- Automation, Business Services, Factory Equipment, South2021
Asprova delivers fully automated production planning for Gebhardt
Industry 4.0, the Smart Factory and AI have been discussed for years, however, even after integrating an MES solution most medium and large-sized companies in Germany still do their production planning with Excel. And this is precisely where Asprova’s innovative, algorithmic planning system comes in; replacing laborious spreadsheet planning with an integrated and fully automated system for the cross-functional orchestration of all processes.
Production planning is at the heart of the “just-in-time” philosophy. Failures in production planning cause expensive waste. Many Industry 4.0 applications can only be fully realised with fully automated production and supply chain planning (APS / SCP) capable of managing end-to-end and cross-functional processes. Asprova’s algorithmic planning system provided just such a solution for Gebhardt, a German firm producing large conveyor systems for a wide variety of industrial applications. For many years, production had been planned and controlled using spreadsheets. However, for complex manufacturing processes such as laser cutting, punching, bending, turning, milling, welding, pre-and final assembly, it was becoming increasingly difficult to create satisfactory sequence planning manually – especially when outsourced processes such as galvanization and paintwork also had to be taken into account.
Finding a more effective method for process optimisation became imperative.
The Asprova APS solution plans and considers the inventory of all components and dynamically links these parts with production orders. This allows for a one-piece flow production whereby thousands of parallel processes can be synchronized. Asprova APS integrates with Gebhardt’s ERP system. Data, including customer orders, planning and production orders, routings, BOM and the production status, is imported from the SAP application daily as a differential import into the Asprova system. Material availability is regularly monitored; the BOM and inventory are aligned to purchase orders, taking into account the processing time for incoming goods.
The results for Gebhardt have been dramatic: Asprova’s APS and the switch to automated production planning means that Gebhardt employees now know the exact date when an individual customer order will be finished and ready for delivery. The shorter lead time enabled Gebhardt to increase its factory output by 100% with no increase of total production resources, greatly increasing efficiency and contributing to a doubling in turnover achieved since Asprova’s implementation.
Find out more about Asprova at https://www.asprova.eu/en/start/
You can meet Asprova on stand J165 at Southern Manufacturing & Electronics 2021, April 20th -22nd, Farnborough. Register for your free tickets at www.industrysouth.co.uk
