Bizerba SE & Co. KG can look back on a long history: founded in 1866, the company is now one of the world’s largest manufacturers of scales, slicers and labeling solutions. Whether self-service scales in supermarkets, slicers in the catering industry or the correct labeling of products in the food industry or in logistics centers – the family-owned company offers a comprehensive portfolio of hardware, software and services. Bizerba is active in 120 countries with over 40 subsidiaries and generates an annual turnover of around 800 million euros. In addition to its headquarters in Balingen, Baden-Württemberg, the company also has a production site in Meßkirch, Germany.
In the past, Bizerba always assigned orders to staff at the Meßkirch site in paper form. Employees were asked to take their daily tasks from a special box and process them manually. However, this method did not provide a way to accurately record the actual productive time per work step. Taking into account the working practices of the time, a target production time was set. However, this did not fully take into account the individual efficiency of the employees or the performance of the machines. The previous paper-based organization therefore led to challenges in accurately recording cycle times and production processes as well as identifying sources of errors and delays. To optimize these processes, Bizerba took a pioneering step: The implementation of a fully digitized solution that replaced pen and paper.
“At first glance, the complete digitalization of our processes seemed like a mammoth task,”
Yasin Öztürk, Project Manager Digitalization at Bizerba, recalls the final decision to make the switch.
“However, we quickly realized that this changeover was a decisive step towards operational excellence.”
The search for a suitable solution ultimately ended with Peakboard GmbH from Stuttgart, a provider of a low-code platform in the industrial environment. The decisive factor in this decision was the consistently positive experience that the Balingen headquarters had already had with the Stuttgart-based company and its solution for creating industrial applications.
At the first meeting with Bizerba Meßkirch, Peakboard first created a proof of concept tailored to the company’s requirements with a focus on machine monitoring. This showed that the solution based on the Peakboard Box, the hardware component with the operating system, and the Peakboard Designer, the software component with the configuration software, could meet the requirements. Here, the orders that run through the respective system were tracked and it was determined how many orders actually pass through each day. This process was successfully established within one day. Over time, the collaboration went beyond pure machine monitoring and solutions were sought that would also optimize other areas of application.
In order to digitalize the entire assembly line, Peakboard integrated a complete Manufacturing Execution System (MES) into the existing structures. This covers the four assembly lines, each with four workstations, and tracks various work processes. However, a particular focus is on tracking the products. Bizerba uses RFID tags, which are recognized by scanners below the assembly line, to be able to track them at any time. The read data is automatically stored in the Peakboard Hub, a central server that manages all data. Three lists containing information on machines, employees and errors are stored here. The current order status can now be determined from these data sources.
As soon as the RFID system registers a product at the workstation, the predefined production time begins. If automatically scheduled interruptions such as meetings or breaks occur during this time, these are automatically deducted from the production time so as not to distort the actual production time. In the event of unforeseen error messages such as quality defects or missing parts, the employee can report these immediately via a barcode scanner connected to the Peakboard Box. The Peakboard Boxes are the hardware component of the Peakboard solution and transfer the data to the Peakboard Hub. In this way, the origin of the error can be traced back and the cause of the error also becomes transparent.
Real-time tracking shortens assembly times.
By tracking the OEE of the machines and the productive working time of the employees, the production times set by Bizerba could be reduced by 40%. A screen has been installed in the assembly hall to provide shift supervisors with a quick overview of the current status of all assembly lines, showing the current OEE of the machines and the efficiency of the (anonymized) personnel at a glance. By historicizing the collected data, the most frequent errors could be identified. With this knowledge, processes could be optimized and the error rate reduced.
Bizerba was able to go live just two months after the integration. In addition to the short configuration phase of the solution, the customer particularly appreciates the scope it has for making independent changes to the applications in the system. As the system is based on the flexible low-code platform developed by Peakboard, standard times or shift schedules can be edited and adapted by the company without in-depth IT knowledge.
The digitalization of complete assembly lines can bring many benefits to a company. Bizerba has achieved a significant increase in efficiency by introducing precise machine control using RFID scanning. Sources of errors are stored and historicized in the Peakboard Hub so that measures to prevent errors can be developed in the long term. Thanks to the real-time tracking of the manufacturing process and the OEE of the systems, the target working time has also been reduced by almost half. The simple handling of the low-code-based Peakboard solution enables the company to intervene in the system independently. The applications can be changed at will without in-depth IT knowledge.
