SOLUTIONS Edition 2020

SOLUTIONS The company magazine of the Blumenbecker Group Issue 2020 1326 STAFF 19 COMPANIES 205 MILLION € TURNOVER A STRONG GROUP With a wide range of products and services, the Blumenbecker Group assists you in achieving your goals. All of our activities, including the automation of plants and machinery, the development of innovative robotics solutions, the supply of products from C parts to machine tools, the inspection, maintenance and repair of your plants, and special-purpose machine building, are supplied from a single source – wherever you are in the world. 2 WE DELIVER SOLUTIONS Surviving in today's globally competitive market means producing goods in a way that is flexible, reliable, fast and cost-effective. As an international industry service provider we have made it our mission to support our customers in this in the best possible way. We see our- selves as a partner to our clients and base our approach on inten- sive dialogue in line with the company philosophy: listening carefully, finding the right answers and putting these into practice reliably and on-time. 30 LOCATIONS 9 COUNTRIES The figures are from 2019. EDITORIAL Dear customers and partners, Welcome to this the third edition of our company mag- Project work with and on behalf of our customers fre- azine SOLUTIONS. quently takes us beyond the borders of Europe – to the USA, to India and even to China. And so it was that in Those who know us know that we at Blumenbecker like 2003, in a move designed to support a major custom- to share knowledge. And we especially like sharing it er of long standing, we set up our first China-based with our customers. Our aim is to find individual answers company in the city of Shanghai. How this became a to complex challenges. We believe that this can only be success story, what part the city of Shanghai played in done by working closely together in a spirit of mutual it and why customers trust in quality › made by Blu- trust and understanding. This is our way of developing menbecker ‹ can be read from page 18 onwards. solutions that make the difference. Take, for example, the robotics system developed for Tatramat, the Slo- When it comes to treading new paths, the home coun- vakian subsidiary of the Stiebel Eltron Group, that has try is still very much at the heart of things. And if you provided an efficient and safe solution for a complicated want to know what paperless switchgear production new welding process (page 38). Or our › smart weight- 4.0 is all about you need look no further than the Blu- lifters ‹, which are in effect nine crane systems designed menbecker Automatisierungstechnik headquarters in to perform highly complex operations for the series Beckum (page 06). production of acid-resistant battery boxes, technology that will provide the technical basis for a Europe-wide We hope that these insights into the world of Blumen- expansion drive. Sometimes it seems that with Blumen- becker will be a source of inspiration. Enjoy the read! becker the wonders never cease (page 32). Olaf Lingnau Richard Mayer Harald Golombek 04 CONTENT _02 Profile _04 Editorial _06 The genius of digital Digitisation in switchgear production _12 › Smart weightlifters ‹ 9 crane systems for 12 acid-resistant battery box production _18 On top of the world Shanghai – China's boom town _22 Where high-speed meets history Blumenbecker in China _26 CNC meets manual machining 7 special machines for training and education _32 Safe and sound 18 The Göltzsch Viaduct in Northern Vogtland _38 Perfect seams for hot water New robot welding system for Tatramat _42 Maintenance Customer Portal 32 Cover photo: Digital instead of analogue – Nelson Schröter in the switchgear production 05 Digitisation in switchgear production THE GENIUS OF DIGITAL Up until a few years ago, the workflows at the Blumen becker switchgear production plant were still all-analog operations. The automation technology specialist then launched a comprehensive digitisation offensive. With impressive results and opportu- nities – for company and clients alike. It is no simple matter to produce machine control systems in series beginning with production batch one. Practically every switchgear unit made by Blumen- becker is one of a kind, with its special design drawings, consignment notes, parts lists, assembly diagrams, wiring lists and other accompanying documents. For decades it has been standard practice to have all this vital information available in paper form only. 06 07 Appreciate the benefits of digital solutions: Florian Sontowski (left) and Nelson Schröter in the modern production centre in Beckum Intelligent data instead of paper The idea of banishing paper of any kind from the pro- ogy-minded › generation Y ‹, this was a very unsatis- duction process has been part of Blumenbecker's factory situation. Nelson Schröter is one of them. The thinking for quite some time. » When it came to ad- electronics engineering technician, who completed his herence to delivery dates and throughput times, the training at Blumenbecker, stands not far from Son- analog production process was no longer sustainable towski in the modern machining centre at the Beckum for us «, says Florian Sontowski, Project Manager In- plant and recalls how things used to be: » Work with novation Process Management, adding in retrospect: the XXL stacks of paper consumed a lot of time and » If a customer wanted to change something, everyone nerves, for example when you had to find a single com- involved in the project had to be notified individually ponent on pages and pages of assembly diagrams. And and the part lists had to be amended by hand. « And then there was all that mass of paper that was simply this did not always fit in with the › just-in-time ‹ system. to end up as waste. I was therefore overjoyed when the For the production teams, and especially the technol- digitisation drive kicked in. « 08 The route to switchgear production 4.0 When setting up the new production shop, Blumen- Schröter and Sontowski have just arrived at the sheet becker also took the opportunity to digitise the entire metal processing centre. They both look on as a col- workflow of the switchgear production plant. This chal- league at the computer screen gets an overview of the lenging task encompassed many different function ar- parts he has to fabricate. » We now call up our › to dos ‹ eas, from material logistics through to export control. and all the other information on the computer, tablet The aim was to take the data obtained during the en- or handheld device and are also taken through the gineering phase and to transfer this to the production work step by step «, explains Schröter. » Any changes process as far as possible without the need for paper. are loaded centrally into the system «, continues Son- To this end, the innovation management team around towski, » so that the entire team has the updated da- Sontowski developed special software solutions, such taset immediately to hand. « In order to further opti- as the Easy Intelligence Process Software (EIP for short) mise the process, any faults occurring are detected by that could process data from PDF documents and CAD a fault management system. » And our customers win drawings and even ERP data such as parts lists and job out too. They now have more leeway right through into information. This software was able to collect all the the production stage «, adds Sontowski. planning and production data, combine the information and process it into interactive working instructions. All the data were to be managed and allocated centrally. 09 Close interaction between the individual, Digital identification optimises the workplace and the software the customer processes The work is supported not just by tablets and hand- One station further on and the function groups are al- held devices but also by video data projectors. These ready installed. Schröter shows us the inside of a fully are the tools of choice, for example, when the function- equipped switch cabinet. » At Blumenbecker, all the al groups are being created. In place of the laborious components have a QR code with an identification num- searches through paper lists, the individual compo- ber. This makes each component non-interchange- nents can now be sorted and picked in the almost play- able, with the result that it can be clearly identified and time-like setting of the put-to-light process. Schröter tracked throughout its entire service life. And this has stands by a work table with a computer screen. Above a number of advantages for our customers and also him is a digital projector and alongside him a picking for subsequent users of the equipment. « By using the trolley. He takes an article from the trolley, scans it in newly developed app EIP.mobile, users can retrieve all and immediately gets a light signal that tells him to the information and documentation they need about which function group it belongs and on what part of the the equipment and the installed components (see blue work table it has to be placed. box). » With a few clicks, they are quickly able to fil- ter out the information they are looking for «, Schröter continues. This not only simplifies the troubleshoot- Even wiring diagrams are going digital ing process but also makes it much easier to order up The Innovation Process Management Team has also spare parts. worked flat out to make working with PDF wiring diagrams more digital. Up until now, handwritten changes that had to be imported back into the ECAD system for complete documentation were searched for manually in the wiring diagram. That took time.

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