PROJECTS

PACKAGING MACHINERY ENGINEERING

The number of variants in packaging machines is driven by the high variance in and diversity of the packagings, which are in turn driven by the foodstuffs groups and the competitive pressures in the marketplace. In the dairy industry, too, the power of the market and the pressure on costs for large retailing chains has an effect on the suppliers and, in turn, the machinery manufacturers. Highly flexible, powerful, easily configured and robust machines are required which are suitable for the respective application. That calls for intelligent machine concepts plus flexible and simple adaptation in the event of an order being placed.

Client: Manufacturer of packaging machines > 200 employees, > 2,000 employees in group

Branch: Packaging machinery engineering

Topic: Offer configuration, document management, cutting production costs, design guidelines, product costing, product modularisation, organisation/configuration of parts lists, CAD selection/benchmark, PDM selection/benchmark, product configuration

Situation: Despite the modularisation that had been carried out internally for a new product line, the positive effects that had been hoped for in terms of the market and internal operations had not materialised. The management saw the need to act quickly to realign the product and design strategy and achieve permanent improvements in performance and the quality of the design delivered.

Brief:

• Organisational separation between neutral product development/maintenance and pure order processing or amended designs
• Introduction of clear subassembly/function responsibilities
• Establishment of neutral product templates/master structures in the form of configurable master parts lists, including suitable organisation of drawings
• A clear reduction in processing workloads in design
• Introduction of a uniform design method and consistent use of the IT systems
• Creation of the necessary capacities for neutral ongoing product development/maintenance

Result:

• Survey of organisational structure and order flowchart, especially for sales, design, production planning, assembly/commissioning and service
• Demonstrating and assessing the potential and deriving requirements for action, including concept and roadmap
• Checking the target markets and exact definition of requirements
• Mapping the requirements to the modules/functions/structures
• Improving the quality of parts lists by setting up and expanding the master parts lists, including mapping in existing ERP system (ams)
• Systematic reduction in multiple solution variants by continuing the standardisation process
• Reducing the adaptation workloads in design by about 30% through changes to the working method

Substantial improvements to drawing quality