Location: 45884 Gelsenkirchen, Germany · Industry: Metalworking, screws, fasteners, automotive · Products: Screws, nuts, fasteners, special screws and cold-formed metal parts · ERP: Comarch · Website: https://www.august-friedberg.com/de/ · S4P modules: FELIOS|BDE powered by 4BDE, FELIOS|MDE powered by 4MDE
Initial situation
German fastener manufacturers currently face high cost pressure — including energy and raw materials — and transformation pressures alongside a stable or slightly declining demand environment with strong international competition. Friedberg had long been operating the ERP system SoftM (now Comarch) together with the production planning system FELIOS|APS and the MES system Hydra by MPDV. Over the years, a need arose on the shop floor for further digital transformation to provide employees with suitable assistance systems for productivity improvement. After an intensive selection process, Hydra was replaced by FELIOS|BDE and FELIOS|MDE powered by S4P. The decisive factors were the customisability and integration capability of the solutions in a mature brownfield environment.
Challenge
In a highly competitive market for fasteners with international competition and rising cost pressure, end-to-end transparency on the shop floor was essential. Without comprehensive operating and machine data collection, utilisation rates, fault reasons and production KPIs could only be determined with significant manual effort. The goal was to map production in real time, detect faults early and substantially improve the quality of feedback data to the ERP system Comarch.
Solution
To optimise its manufacturing processes, August Friedberg GmbH relies on the solutions from S4P. Manual feedback is provided at more than 150 BDE terminals in the final expansion stage. The operating and machine data captured end-to-end are transmitted to the ERP system Comarch via REST web services, evaluated and enable transparent, reliable and cross-site production control. Modules in use: 4BDE — shop-floor data collection for transparent capture and evaluation of order and operating data; 4MDE — machine data collection for gap-free recording of quantities, states and fault reasons.
Results and benefits
With the S4P solutions, August Friedberg GmbH achieved higher transparency and productivity in production and a more reliable data basis for production control. Operating and machine data are captured reliably, utilisation and faults are detected early and manual data-entry effort has been reduced — delivering greater efficiency and on-time delivery performance.