The internationally active Intercable Group has been relying on digital shop floor management with Solunio's Visual Shop Floor software since 2016.
It obtains information from eight IT systems, prepares important key figures clearly
and makes them available to managers and employees in real time based on their roles. With considerable growth, the company benefits from stable processes, higher Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE) and significantly lower error costs.
Intercable Ltd., Visual Shop Floor – Shop Floor Meeting
Profile – Intercable Ltd.
Intercable Ltd., headquarter Bruneck
Founded in 1972 in Brunico (South Tyrol), Intercable Ltd. today operates as a global player with two mainstays: Intercable Tools develops and manufactures tools for processing low and medium voltage cables as well as connecting materials for the electrical, wind and railroad sectors. Intercable Automotive has been producing plastic parts and cable protection systems for the automotive industry since the early 1990s.
With customer-specific tooling, innovative plastic injection molded parts and a zero-defect quality target, the Tier 1 supplier of high-current components for electromobility at the Bruneck site grew from 120 employees in 2008 to 800 today, with a further 700 employees spread across plants in Slovakia and China.
With customer-specific tooling, innovative plastic injection molded parts and a zero-defect quality target, the Tier 1 supplier of high-current components for electromobility at the Bruneck site grew from 120 employees in 2008 to 800 today, with a further 700 employees spread across plants in Slovakia and China.
Growing challenges
Interlinked, multi-stage production processes such as die casting, punching and welding, finishing, assembly, packaging and shipping are difficult to keep track of. Extensive data on machines, employees, quality processes, output and rejects are generated and processed in systems ran- ging from PDA to CAQ and ERP. “But these are all isolated solutions”, says Patrick Abfalterer, Automotive Assembly Department Manager at Intercable. “Those responsible were missing important data and key figures, which they had to laboriously gather f rom various systems.”
When faced with problems from strong company growth and increasing quality requirements, they did not always focus on the right processes, machines or production areas. “The priorities were not clearly evident”, says Patrick Abfalterer. “The consequences were unrest in production and planning errors, incorrect distribution of competencies and capacities.”Germ cell in the automotive assembly hall
In 2016, for example, the company decided on an Industry 4.0 project with the software manufacturer Solunio, also based in Bruneck, and its Visual Shop Floor software. The digital tool for the lean discipline of shop floor management creates transparency – for employees and managers. Data is taken from the existing systems, machine controls and sensors and processed according to the customer′s information needs. The information obtained is continuously displayed on dashboards. Likewise, they are used to prepare meetings or for process automation.
“In preparation, we defined the desired key figures on Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE), quality trends and productivity as well as the corresponding data sources including eight different IT systems,” Patrick Abfalterer reports. “Likewise, we had to determine the exact information needed along our management structure.” To keep the project manageable, the first step was to start with the automotive assembly hall. There, around 70 employees work on 43 systems, which mainly comprise special machines, in various manufacturing and assembly processes.I can see at a glance the current order status at every workplace!
Patrick Abfalterer,
Head of Automotive Assembly, Intercable