Markus Wiesmeier, Factory manager asma GmbH
Mister Wiesmeier, you are the factory manager and responsible for the planning of production. What were the most important changes in the past?
The most important point was digitalisation. In the past, orders were recorded by hand and forwarded in person.
In those times we had only a few big customers, mainly we worked on many small orders even for private people or spare parts for farmers.
Why was digitalisation necessary?
With the time the order volume and number of employees increased. This required us to implement a new software in 2001 to automatize the forwarding of orders. Using a barcode, the employees could register for a certain task. The status of an order could be tracked at any time, which makes planning processes and the calculation of costs easier.
How did employees react? Were there any big problems?
It´s been almost 20 years now, that the change took place. For many older employees, it has been the first time working with a computer. The younger ones could adopt faster, of course, but all in all: Kudos to the whole team! We did a great job at adapting in such a short period of time. Of course, the constant feeling of supervision came along with the new technologies.
What happened then?
In 2004, asma implemented the ERP system, which is a software used in production to illustrate the workflow. This includes the whole process, from the customer request to the delivery in the end, as well as the documentation and the materials management. A huge advantage of the system is, that the quality control is improved.
This sounds very professional already. What were the logical, subsequent steps?
The next big challenge was that several hundred orders are constantly in production at the same time. This system illustrates free capacities in each department, identifies critical situations and bottle necks, and supports the planning staff to react in time. The planning of the date of delivery was a quite difficult task and some could not be met at first. With the new Gantt planning tool in 2016, production steps can be arranged according to our free capacities. So now, dates of delivery can be predicted and met exactly, which contributes also to a better working atmosphere.