SAP System House T.CON at ZELLCHEMING-Expo 2012

The Plattling-based SAP system house T.CON GmbH & Co. KG will be exhibiting at ZELLCHEMING-Expo to be held from 26th to 28th June 2012 in the Rhein-Main-Hallen in Wiesbaden. On its stand number 546 in Hall 5, this IT service-provider will be exhibiting its entire portfolio of consultancy, products and services for the optimisation of business processes in the paper and pulp industry.

“Paper and pulp producers are battling against increasing raw material prices and energy costs, severe competition and high internal costs. Companies are already pulling out all the stops to improve productivity continuously and increase their competitiveness. This needs a clear view of all information, value chains and processes as well as integrated, tightly controlled and cost-optimised operating procedures in all areas“ explained Peter Flieher, Senior Application Specialist, Manufacturing-Execution Systems (MES) at T.CON GmbH & Co. KG. Paper and pulp producers in particular must shed more light on shop floor processes so that production management can follow the processes almost as they happen – and deploy staff, material and machines to their best advantage. To achieve this they need a real time view of what is happening in production at any time as well as a continuous and transparent information flow between manufacturing and the higher-ranking management business applications.

Companies using SAP ERP can create this vertical integration between the shop floor and the ERP world with T.CON’s flexible, powerful and user-friendly MES CAT suite. The manufacturing-execution (ME) solution is completely embedded in the central SAP system in a manner which is free from interfaces and can be linked seamlessly into the production-related systems. Data and key figures (key performance indicators or “KPIs”) are collected and processed completely automatically almost at the time they occur. All KPIs are presented in a simple diagrammatic form on a web interface. The efficiency of the manufacturing processes can therefore be promptly improved and optimised in a very targeted manner, thus reducing costs. End-users, from the machine operator through to the Plant Manager and even the General Manager can call up the latest data on finished volumes, yields, rejections, overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) or quality feed-back at any time and at the touch of a button.

The KPIs captured by MES CAT on the shop floor are immediately fed into the ERP back-end where they are promptly assessed in detail using powerful analysis tools. In this way managers receive valid and safe information for decision-taking which helps them in the efficient implementation of improvements, for example during procurement or in the warehouse. The ME solution provides 22 production-relevant KPIs “out of the box“ which the German Engineering Federation (the VDMA) has standardised in its norm 66412-1. This increases the value of performance calculations used to assess the efficiency of individual business processes such as production planning and control; it is also of value in internal performance comparisons of plant, production areas or works.

Companies with a multi-variant length and laminate production can also map their business processes very efficiently with the pre-configured industry solution T.CON All-in-One Roll which is based on SAP ERP and incorporates the process consultancy of T.CON. The turn-key best practice template covers typical industrial processes and requirements such as traceability of rolls, the creation of cutting plans and cutting optimisation as well as production and block planning and recipe management.

Even the rather special processes of wood procurement, ranging from purchasing, via transport from the collection areas in the forest (the stacks) and delivery to the works through to production and payment to the supplier can be simply, easily and quickly followed on the screen. T.CON provides a SAP-based add-on solution for this purpose with which all the data relevant to wood procurement can be captured and summarised process by process in just a single mask. It is also possible to record the positions of the individual stacks in the forest in SAP using GPS data.

Thanks to a proactive, condition-oriented maintenance strategy and IT-supported repairs and maintenance processes, the risk of unplanned plant stoppages and expensive break-down costs can be reduced to a minimum. The integrated add-on “Mobile Maintenance Management“ (MMM) provides a smooth transmission of data from the maintenance technician on the spot to the central SAP-ERP system. Using a PDA with an interface optimised for touch-screen input, technicians can access maintenance data such as feed-back, error messages or repair procedures directly at the maintenance point and can transfer them directly into SAP ERP. In return, they can also use the PDA to call up all information relevant to their work from the ERP back-end, for instance master data, the latest messages, readings or work instructions.

If you are interested and want to be impressed by the comprehensive process and consultancy know-how of the T.CON experts and the effectiveness of their SAP-based IT solutions for the paper and pulp industry visit ZELLCHEMING-Expo and meet T.CON in Hall 5 stand 546.