Digital production as our key to success at ABUS Pfaffenhein

• enables paper-free production steps at each production workplace
• extracts data from the working process
• always displays the current order with all necessary details
• navigates with mandatory fields through the quality control
• supports the pictorial alignment of features
• alerts in case of eventual errors
• is a step in the direction of industry 4.0 and towards totally automated machine control

From his point of view, the digitization of the offer process was only moderately exciting, but the sales colleagues of Holger Kahl are grateful for it each day. Previously they could start price queries in the ERP system, but it was not possible to store a contact history. Now offers and order processes are tied together. Whatever happened prior to an order or during its processing can now be tracked via JobRouter®. If e.g. a key service has a question regarding an order, the respective original order can be found easily. “Speed, transparency, and traceable processes are the most important advantages of JobRouter® for me. And here JobRouter® has supported us a lot.” Holger Kahl, team leader ERP development.

Sebastian Fritzsche, IT manager, draws an interim balance: “In the course of time, we have revised the order process three more times and adapted it to the advancing user requirements and expectations. And we have automated upstream processes as far as possible.” When the license for the previously utilized accounting program expired in 2018, the guys from Pfaffenhain used the opportunity for a sweeping blow and simultaneously tackled order requirements, incoming goods, and incoming invoices. A reasonable step – as the paper-based tasks were still handled as in the good old days: with manually recorded cost centers and sticky notes, if orders were changed. However, search operations were still needed, due to the large number of documents that circulated through the offices day by day. Replacement documents had to be printed and colleagues had to be personally contacted to clarify or change instances.

The complex release circles were a key challenge. “Our hair went gray due to them”, says Holger Kahl and laughs. Test processes in the purchase department, quality control at the manufacturing devices, reduction of order volumes, releases from the general management addressed to the accounting department – so many spots, where a green light must be given. In analog times these process parts lead to many congestions and interruptions, and delivery notes accumulated in post boxes, and invoice documents for the next meeting with the general management piled up in document folders. First it was necessary to manually enter order requirements into the ERP system to initiate an order. Personnel and time-intensive tasks, which still are well known by companies of all industries, even in our digital age.

“In my opinion, JobRouter® is simple and easy to handle and links everything, like a remote control.” Sebastian Fritzsche, IT manager. “We used our chances and beamed the complete invoice process together with all related workflows, including interface, to the accounting system in JobRouter®” states Holger Kahl. Since then, the digitization platform assigns all data and documents, informs all colleagues involved, and requests release ticks according to the defined process. Orders are placed within hours; invoices are allocated to an account and settled in the same speed. Recently, all release processes were double-checked in a follow-up project and optimized via a new linkage within JobRouter® and an extension of the interface to the ERP system.

When Holger Kahl reports on his mammoth project, his eyes light up. The throughput they have been measuring since the beginning of the year has increased compared to last year. Holger Kahl: “Without the digitization it would not have been possible to offer express delivery for locking systems to our clients. If a locking system meets certain general conditions, we ship the goods on the 3rd working day after the receipt of the order.” The key to success was the elimination of the last media break and the linkage of the order processing to the production. Gone is the handing over of orders in the form of large piles; a premonition of Industry 4.0 drifts through the halls.

For the implementation, the IT team opted for the classic route, beginning at the order start and ending at the shipping station. Until manufacturing was digitized, a lot of paper still rolled through the printers for each individual production step, which is quite complex in itself. The initial fears of data loss and downtimes have given way to enthusiasm and pride, since the colleagues at their production workstations have been working with the input and control fields in JobRouter® day after day.

“JobRouter® has now been rolled out in all key areas”, declares Sebatsian Fritzsche happily, “and we are moving towards the limit according to JobRouter headquarters, with 80 process steps and 7 digitized processes in the production process.” This means that no other customer has so far mapped similarly highly complex processes back to variant manufacturers in JobRouter®. This does not affect the functionality; the digitization platform runs reliably and without delay. Holger Kahl is a good sport about it: „We gain so many key figures via JobRouter® that show us where we can model our processes even better. Actually, we twist every day at our sub-processes and press another diversion here and there into a JobRouter® rule.” The end of the digitization passion does not seem to be in sight.