Background: EJOT’s global operations and build-to-order production
EJOT, headquartered in North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany, is a group of medium-sized companies with production sites in Europe, North and South America, and Asia. The manufacture of the diverse fastening elements is organized in a build-to-order approach, with multiple hundreds of active orders at any given time.
Overcoming manual processes and media disruptions
Order processing comprises several production steps, sometimes across plants and with subcontractors, with variable routings. The work tasks on the shop floor are only partially carried out using digital means and are still characterized by media disruptions and paperwork.
Organising effective workflows on the shop floor, as well as production and logistics planning and scheduling, to minimize non-value-added working time is a challenging and time-consuming manual task every day.
Implementing INDUTRAX and Quuppa RTLS for digital transformation
EJOT has digitised various use cases in production and logistics across multiple plants with INDUTRAX Location Aware products and location data from Quuppa RTLS to automatically gain transparency on order movements on the shop floor.
The INDUTRAX tracking solution enables the digital execution of work tasks on the shop floor in conjunction with the SAP PP production planning and control system by providing access to real-time location data via individual user interfaces. A list of prioritised orders and a map of order locations help to make better decisions for machine control on a visual basis.
The use of FINDERAPP and SHOPFLOORAPP on mobile devices enables access to real-time information and digital updates of changes outside the office. Team leaders can define events in the software to automate administrative tasks, such as shipment notifications or blocking orders. Location Aware Reports provide insight into historical data on inventory movement, which feeds into lean manufacturing initiatives to drive continuous improvement.
Up to 8,000 production orders are tracked simultaneously indoors by the Quuppa Real-Time Locating System using Quuppa-approved, active Bluetooth® Tags from BlueUp. Teltonika GPS Trackers enable transparency about the whereabouts of valuable assets outdoors. The raw location data is processed by the INDUTRAX software to create a digital twin of the factory. Orders can be effectively located on the shop floor by the tag’s LED using a pick-to-light feature.
Benefits: Increased transparency and efficiency in order tracking
EJOT has a significantly improved overview of the order status in production and can find individual orders that are required for the next processing step even faster without using paper. Search times have been reduced by 75%.
The increased transparency prevents errors, such as the unintentional use of blocked orders. The data collected by the software on the process steps and dwell times for each order enables better decisions to be made when rescheduling is necessary, which also reduces non-value-added working time, such as unplanned transfers of orders between different buffer areas, and forms the basis for continuous process improvements. The result is increased throughput in production and the creation of the necessary transparency in production processes.
Next steps
Location-aware solutions are one important element of EJOT’s bigger goal towards Industry 4.0. In the coming years, EJOT will continuously expand the solution to other facilities around the globe and include data from subcontractors to gain even more transparency about its complete Supply Chain.
