The factory that thinks

You could probably find tools, injection moulding machinery, materials and logistics vehicles at any injection moulding factory; so what is so special about the components in the injection moulding facility at Hager in Blieskastel, Saarland? They communicate with each other. Every component ‘knows’ which tool is currently in use and where each tool is being used, what stage a product is currently in, and when and how it can be supplied. The entire process is managed by an intelligent piece of software that monitors the automated production process around the clock. This flagship project at Hager in Blieskastel, Tool Management 4.0, is showcasing the tremendous potential to be found in digitalised production.

“Colleagues from Germany, France and Poland worked together for nine months on the project Tool Management 4.0 for the injection moulding facility at Blieskastel,” recalls Stefan Schorr, an IT Director at Hager Group, describing the ambitious undertaking. “One of the major challenges involved was bringing together specialists from very different disciplines and countries. Nevertheless, as you can see, it was a success.”

RFID chips are used to alert the driver to the exact shelf position of the required tool. These tools may vary significantly in terms of size and dimension.

This cooperation worked so well that Tool Management 4.0 project gathered attention on national level. Project manager Schorr went to the Digital Transformation Awards 2015 to receive an award in the Business & Strategy category; issued by the magazine Wirtschaftswoche and presented at the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure. The panel heaped particularly high praise on ‘the foundations laid for the further development of Industry 4.0.’

Hager Group as an Industry 4.0 trailblazer

So what exactly is hidden behind this term that is currently on everyone’s lips in IT and strategy departments?

Industry 4.0 stands for the next phase of industrial production technology and curiously also for building a bridge between the manual, small-scale manufacturing techniques of old, where every product was one of a kind, and the mass production methods used were of the past century. In Industry 4.0, traditional mass production systems are interlinked with state-of-the-art information and communication technology. This enables products to be custom-made to individual customer specifications in a cost-effective process and to a high standard of quality.

“Customers are pushing for customisation,” explains Eckart Uhlmann from the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology in Berlin (IPK). “…however large-scale industry is still attuned to mass production with a comparatively small number of variants. Which is why, in the future, it will require an extremely high degree of flexibility.”

The smart factory that organises itself

Using the ‘smart factory’ concept, production and logistics processes can be connected throughout the different areas of the company to optimise material flow, identify potential errors at an early stage and respond flexibly to changed customer requirements and market conditions. For instance, a manufacturer such as Hager Group could be automatically notified of an individual customer requirement via the joint network. The manufacturer in turn would use an automated process to order the requisite raw materials from its suppliers, and then employ fully automated production processes to manufacture, package and deliver the product. Of course, highly qualified employees would still be required to design and maintain intelligent machinery such as this, yet people would no longer have to intervene in the production process at all.

“For us, this means that we can cater to existing customers more effectively, faster and more cost-effectively with a number of custom-made solutions, with batch sizes even as low as one,” comments Ulrich Holzer, Hager Group Corporate IT Director. Increased speed is also an ever more important factor for success given that modern customers are accustomed to having their requirements met within no time at all by suppliers like Amazon.

According to Ulrich Holzer, Hager Group will set itself apart from its competitors with its engineered-to-order solutions and supply superior quality, one-of-a-kind products.

A customised service like this will thus translate into more satisfied existing customers, potential new customer groups, more bespoke solutions and more cost-effective, automated production processes. This is all possible thanks to digitalised production, yet production always begins and ends with people along with their individual requirements and ideas.