Digital batch management and BDE with an app
Initial Situation
RHEINTACHO Messtechnik GmbH manufactures industrial measurement systems such as rotational speed sensors, hand-held tachometers, stroboscopes and other measuring instruments. RHEINTACHO makes its products in many different variants, as each variant is adapted to suit the exact application or specifications of its customers. Particularly in the field of speed sensors, the differences between these product variants are often only in the electronics installed within them, and this can be visually challenging for RHEINTACHO’s employees in many different areas of logistics and production.
To help with this difficulty, RHEINTACHO has introduced a picking app for the order picking process, and this has reduced the error rate in the products selected and enabled a generally leaner process to be achieved overall. This mobile picking app has also motivated RHEINTACHO to exploit the potential for optimisation in the area of production. As far as the diversity of products is concerned, it is also extremely important for batch management to be able to trace exactly which component or sub-assembly has been used for which order – because they cannot be matched up subsequently.
In the past, paper documents were used that indicated which batch should be used for which production order. Not only did this method use a lot of paper, it also involved a high risk of error in the transfer of information, which was impossible to spot subsequently. It was therefore deemed necessary to digitalise this process and to map it with a mobile application.
One of the requirements here was that the data and logs should be transferable directly to the Comarch ERP system. On top of this, the application had to be sufficiently user-friendly for employees who were not previously familiar with software applications to be able to use it without difficulties.
The solution with engomo
Having already created an app based on the low-code engomo platform for Dispatch and quickly succeeded in achieving discernible added value in this department, RHEINTACHO decided that it would also use engomo for its digital batch management. Further reasons for doing so were that the platform could be integrated seamlessly into the existing system landscape and that during implementation of the previous application, engomo mapped the individual requirements of the RHEINTACHO process very precisely.
Since engomo was already integrated into the RHEINTACHO process structure, it was possible to create a batch management app in just a few weeks. In both Production and the Dispatch, the app runs iPads. Which batch is being used in which production order can now be recorded directly during the process via this app and documented in the backend system in real time. To do so, production employees scan the current batches using the camera on the tablet and allocate them to the appropriate order. This was made possible by including the engomo Barcode module when configuring the app, so that barcodes can be scanned from within the app. And now all material bookings at RHEINTACHO are also performed using this mobile app.
Users have given positive feedback about the app throughout. Additional ideas and suggestions have come in quickly and it has been possible to implement these quickly and easily. Today, for example, employees not only enter the batch currently being processed directly into the app but also record the time that they require for a particular operation. This makes it possible to plan employee capacity accurately.
The latest engomo-based app currently in use at RHEINTACHO is for mobile tool management. The objective here is to match the capacity utilisation of the tools available and their maintenance optimally by allocating all tools to specific production orders. It should also be possible for employees to access all tool manuals and assembly documents directly from their workstation.
Using individual enterprise apps, RHEINTACHO can take significant steps in its production towards digitalisation of processes and away from the need for paper-based information transfer. Thanks to the flexibility of adaptation offered by the low-code engomo platform, RHEINTACHO can achieve its Industry 4.0 projects on an iterative and agile basis without the need for extensive IT development projects.
Author: engomo GmbH