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CERTA Success StoryALPLA Werke Alwin Lehner GmbH & Co KG

Increasing importance is being attached to pro-duction planning in order to control in real-time batch sizes of 1 in the Industry 4.0 world. For the transition from Excel-based planning, ALPLA has opted for the professional PlanTool application.

TIME-CONSUMING PLANNINGPlanning information at ALPLA was generated in a time-consuming way in Excel, that necessitated every time a lot of mental agility and coordination. Many intricate iteration loops were necessary, es-pecially when there were scheduling conflicts and bottlenecks.

REAL-TIME PLANNINGFollowing an evaluation phase with subsequent, in-tensive test phase, company management decided in 2017 to introduce PlanTool from pro-PlanTool GmbH. Seamless integration into the existing MES system from CERTA Systems was one of the key criteria. Now, with the introduction of PlanTool, in-formation flows from Engineering to Production via manufacturing scheduling, and back, digitally, with time-consuming and unproductive paper printouts consigned to the past. PlanTool detects scheduling conflicts based on priorities and necessary capac-ities over all on-going jobs, to which targeted and early reactions are possible. All work steps with all dependencies are then rescheduled according-ly. It does not mean however there is no human involvement at all – the production and process knowledge of skilled workers is still called for here.

AUTOMATED AND TRANSPARENTThe production line at ALPLA currently comprises four exeron EDM 313 eroding machines, an ex-

eron HSC 600 milling machine, two ZEISS CONTU-RA 3D coordinates measuring machine and a MA-FAC washer. The workpieces and tools are stored in five EROWA rack magazines. JMS© 4.0 MoldLine is responsible for all process control and the EROWA Robot System Linear (ERSL) performs all conveying jobs. The seamless integration of Plan-Tool now means the complete job is transferred to JMS© 4.0 MoldLine from CERTA at the press of a button. The NC programs are also imported au-tomatically from the CAM department to JMS© 4.0 MoldLine. All work and process times actually re-quired are automatically sent from the machine to PlanTool for job-specific production costing.

OPTIMISED LOGISTICSInternal logistics processes have also been opti-mised using PlanTool. When materials are deliv-ered, the raw materials are stored directly in in-ternal transport crates. A single barcode on each crate provides a reference to the job at all times, making it trackable transparently during the en-tire manufacturing process. Whilst previously in

With the seamless integration of PlanTool into JMS © 4.0 MoldLine, our planning processes were accelerated and throughput times significantly reduced.

Reference of:

CERTA Systems GmbH | Roßendorfer Str. 1 | D - 90556 CadolzburgPhone: +49 (0) 9103 / 71 55 0 - 0 | Support: +49 (0) 9103 / 71 55 0 - 50e-mail: info@certa-systems.com | www.certa-systems.com

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ALPLA Werke GmbH Allmendstraße 816971 Hard, Austria+43 (0)5574 6020office@alpla.com www.alpla.com/de

EROWA System Technologien GmbH Roßendorfer Str. 1 D - 90556 Cadolzburg+ 49 (0) 9103 / 79 00-0 info@erowa.de www.erowa.de

Client: Partner:

Christoph Mairhofer, Head of Manufacturing ALPLA Werke Alwin Lehner GmbH & Co KG

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production there was often a lack of clarity and drawings and work plans had to be located, now all relevant information is available for every em-ployee at the press of a button.

INDUSTRY 4.0 PERSPECTIVESThe step towards PlanTool was of great signifi-cance with a view to the requirements in the world of Industry 4.0. Seamless integration of PlanTool into JMS© 4.0 MoldLine has brought about accel-eration of the planning processes and marked reductions in cycle times, specifically with reduc-tions in idle periods and digital data transfer. In addition to transparency of processes, levels of productivity and reliability have also increased. So ALPLA is also now in a position to take on more orders every year.