The company initially supplied just one team with real-time data as a test. “We noticed right away that they see things the others don’t, such as the status quo of orders, incorrect bookings, deadline discrepancies, and much more. The team with the new solution had an advantage in terms of information, which made it possible for them to take steps quickly so that our customers received their product on time and with the customary Fischer quality,” said Fimpel, describing the initial experience.
Errors in data consistency, for example, due to incorrect area specifications, are now transparent as well, and all areas—Production, Purchasing, Logistics, PPS, LEAN—share the same overall picture of the situation. One particular “aha” moment occurred when orders that had been physically completed, but which were still listed as open in the system, became transparent. Right after going live for the first time, the team saw that an order that was actually finished had not yet been scanned as completed. Another example was an order flagged as red order that suddenly became visible as being in progress at workstation A, although it had been posted to workstation B. Discovering this at a later date would have caused major problems with inventory and pricing, among other things, resulting in subsequent costs.
“Ever since the solution was implemented, the issues on the shop floor have now become clearly focused on the specific challenges, and we are much faster when it comes to resolving them. The urgency of a case, such as a missing part, now depends entirely on its importance, making it an objective matter. This has also helped us to further develop our error-correction culture, as we can now identify error chains in real time and easily break them,” said Fimpel. “Even when faced with looming bottlenecks, we are now responding faster, and we are managing to plan capacities more accurately, ensure greater delivery reliability, and utilize our capacities better. Our decisions have become swifter and more targeted ever since we began visualizing our production processes. Dealing with challenges transparently and based on facts means that employees better understand decisions and accept the solution very well.”
