German surface finishing company, Putzier GmbH has announced savings of 2.4 tons steel a year and vastly reduced lead times thanks to a proactive attitude to digital transformation.
Putzier refines steel parts through thermal spraying for engineering, paper and electrical industry as well as for the food processing sectors and is one of many businesses benefitting from the digitalisation of manufacturing.
Based in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) – colloquially known as the “land of coal and steel”, the company employs a variety of spraying techniques, including cold spraying, wire flaming, and plasma spraying. It processes in the region of 90 tons of steel and four tons of spray powder every year.
The firm’s managing director, Matthias Puttkamer explained: “To improve our general resources efficiency, we contacted the efficiency agency in NRW, a centre of competence for resource efficiency of the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of the Environment.
“A first analysis of the manufacturing processes revealed that the software architecture we used [ERP, PPS, BDE], couldn’t meet the requirements, we needed.”
With the help of Quick RKR, a system developed by the efficiency agency, which calculates resources prices more accurate, Putzier could better connect its purchase processes with the order situation.
Puttkamer added: “The update of the costing situation enables us to constantly analyse orders in respect of the efficiency. This way, we can very quickly identify uneconomic orders.”
The time required from the initital technical order and cost estimation to manufacturing are reportedly reduced by up to 60%. Reject rates, internal complaint times and stock management could also be significantly reduced, he noted.
By implementing the software, Putzier could save 2.4 tons of steel each year, with overall material consumption be reduced by 3%.
With the help of dynamic project management systems and maintaining its proactive approach to the digitalisation of manufacturing, the company seeks to make itself fit for the future.
