Founded in 1985, Pankl Racing Systems Inc. is a leading international manufacturer of high-tech mechanical systems for dynamic components in the global niche markets of the racing, luxury automotive and aviation industries. At seven locations worldwide, 2,200 employees serve customers such as Ferrari, Porsche, McLaren and Airbus.
In production, there was a magnetic board with printed lists, in which the employees manually entered the production progress every two hours. At the end of the shift, this list was passed on to the production planning department and transferred to Excel. Only shift and production managers received a visual presentation of the data. An analysis of the causes of delays took place retrospectively and consequently late, and was not always accurate. In addition, this system was costly and prone to errors.
The company wanted to reduce its HR and other costs as much as possible for setting up data connections and visualization solutions. Additional criteria that it wished to achieve include flexibility and partner independence. Pichler summarized what the company was looking for:
“The solution needed to be simple, quick to deploy, and easy to adjust at our company to avoid tying up our IT resources.”
The team tested multiple offerings, though the others turned out to be too complicated and required extensive training. Pichler noted:
“With Peakboard, I was able to download the Peakboard Designer for free and quickly try out everything. I didn’t have to go on the promises of sales representatives or rely on product demos. The provided templates made it very clear what was possible. Right down to the scripting, I was able to understand how tasks were solved, although I’m not a programmer by training. When I needed support with a specific problem, the support service was very helpful, even before we formally became customers.”
Pankl began by tasking its business application team with creating a database and programming a SQL database that did not have to directly access the ERP. As far as IT is concerned, this is the preferred solution, as it can now import the data into a separate system. From this point on it no longer has to be involved. The amount of data to be processed comprised around 15,000 lines, which the company reduced in advance. Pichler designed more than half of the dashboard himself, and Pankl conducted a workshop with Peakboard to complete the rest of the design process.
A total of six Peakboard Boxes and four Peakboard Edges are currently installed at two locations. They digitally map 20 production lines or processes and also allow information to be fed in that is not yet available digitally. The employees see the current order and its target, the current quantity, the progress percentage, the machine status, and also the reasons for machine downtimes, which can be accessed via an interactive input mask in the ERP on the dashboard. The displays are installed centrally in the respective production section and update the data every ten minutes, which the employees can also call up from their home office. The main screen provides an overview, and the three sub-screens supplement the information with important details.
The company’s executives and managers were immediately impressed by the system. Pichler described the first test run of the system:
“We were so excited about the possibilities that we scrolled through 25 visualizations one after the other on one screen. Peakboard advised us against doing this, but we wanted to try it out anyway. That caused the system to overload. Our people had to wait a long time before they could see their machine. Now we have a visualization that shows the status quo of the most important parameters immediately and as large as possible.”
This meets the needs of the shift supervisors, who can now see the information they need at a glance at any time, even from a distance.
“If we had made this mistake using a classic solution, fixing the problem would have been a costly process. Instead, it only took half a day of adjustments. The problem was fixed in-house without having to involve IT.”
For more than a year, Pankl employees have known whether they are on or off track down to the minute. If a production line breaks down, they can intervene immediately. Before the solution, an employee would have to transcribe the machine downtime and transmit it, a process that took about 15 minutes. In addition, planning and logistics have improved significantly, and the real-time display allows targeted root cause analyses.
Pichler drew a positive conclusion:
“The shift supervisors can react more quickly to deviations. With 20 plants and a production area of 10,000 m², we lost our overview of the situation. Now it is possible to see the entire production process on the main screen at a glance. Technical managers, operations managers, and planners can access the data via Peakboard Hub and thereby gain insight into the current production progress. Our shift report is automatically created based on the data and distributed by email. Since we operate our assembly lines 24/7, this information is extremely important for the managers.”
Pankl is therefore considering expanding the system to other locations and subsidiaries in order to establish it as a group-wide standard solution.
