“Gain in productivity and efficiency”

Digitalization to secure the future: Arpogaus now controls sheet metal production with Lantek’s MES software: in production, complex assemblies – mostly individual parts, small series at most; in work preparation: long-standing, experienced employees whose retirement is in sight – and this in a company that has tripled its turnover in four years. Managing Director Tobias Grimmig calls the path to digitalization that Arpogaus Stahlbau has taken “securing the future”.

Even the dimensions of the products are enormous: Arpogaus manufactures welded constructions weighing up to 20 tons and up to 20 meters long for the construction machinery industry and large-scale and special machine construction. In the small town of Wiggensbach in the Oberallgäu region, 70 employees produce around 600 prototypes and small series parts per year on 7,000 square meters of production space – from cutting with very complicated bevels for weld seam preparation to welding, milling and drilling to final assembly and painting. They do this in the shortest possible delivery times: “We deliver five weeks after receiving the order,” says Managing Director Tobias Grimmig. In 2018, he took over the company from Peter Arpogaus, who was the second generation to run the business, which was founded in 1959. Liebherr was one of Arpogaus’ main customers right from the start.

“We don’t have any leftover sheet metal”

Cutting to size in sheet metal production at Arpogaus is a challenge because, according to Grimmig: “We don’t have any leftover sheets. We always cut complete sheets, otherwise we are not efficient enough.” This means working across multiple orders, sometimes cutting parts for 60 different orders from one sheet. Who is supposed to find their way around when 30 sheets of different thicknesses and grades are required for one order? Elke Gast, an employee in work preparation, and Peter Gast, head of work preparation, take care of that. Until a few months ago, they kept track of everything with a system they had built up over the years and huge Excel spreadsheets on a large table in the work preparation department. “Elke Gast is reliable, meticulous and precise. Despite her hundreds of pieces of paper and lists, nothing has ever gone wrong,” says the boss admiringly. But he also has to think ahead – to the time when his long-serving employees retire and valuable expert knowledge is lost with them. “These are skills that are no longer so easy to find on the market. In addition, we have tripled our turnover in the past four years – this has created a level of complexity that was difficult to manage with this approach. At some point, it was quite obvious that our path had to lead us in the direction of digitalizing these processes.” Arpogaus has been using Lantek Expert CAD-CAM software for years to control its plasma and oxyfuel machines from the manufacturer Zinser. Jens Schamberger worked as a sales representative at Zinser before joining Lantek. A fortunate coincidence, says Grimmig, who calls Arpogaus an “extreme user of the software”. He says of Schamberger: “We’ve known each other for more than ten years now and are fighting for the cause together. Where the software is not practicable for our needs, he uses his practical experience to build a bridge to the programmers.” Schamberger was therefore able to tell Arpogaus exactly what the company needed to relieve its work preparation and take the next step towards automating its processes: the Lantek MES Manager software. “Before the introduction of our production control software, Arpogaus entered entire orders as assemblies in Lantek Expert – sometimes up to 6,000 parts. This made the system very slow and his actual work – creating nesting plans – took a lot of time,” reports Schamberger.

What used to take 20 minutes is now done in five “With our MES, work preparation is much easier. The orders entered there are created in assemblies with sub-jobs and all parts are sent individually through production. Whereas it used to take 30 minutes to create the nesting plan for a panel and find the right parts from all the Excel tables, it now takes five minutes because the system pulls the right parts together from all active orders.” Production management can also use Lantek Manager to track the current status of each part at any time: what has already been cut and processed and what has not. They also have the option of specifying what needs to be cut and when, with a view to delivery deadlines. The system gives her feedback at any time as to which assembly from an order is finished and which still needs to be produced. The manager shows which parts from which order fit on the panel remnant. Lantek and Arpogaus took a step-by-step approach to implementing the new MES system. First, the software was installed on a test system, which Jens Schamberger used to train the responsible employees. “Elke Gast was very active during the implementation of the Lantek Manager,” recalls her boss, but also her concerns. “If something goes wrong now, the whole company will come to a standstill,” she kept saying. But nothing went wrong – and operations ran better after the implementation than before. Grimmig: “If there is still space on a plate, the manager shows us which parts from which orders match the quality and thickness of their material requirements.” This allows Arpogaus to cut today what will only be needed in a few months’ time. “The system also helps us to identify which sheet needs to be cut in order to complete the next order on time. The software has brought us huge gains in productivity and efficiency.” And Grimmig has been relieved of one worry in particular: “Before, no one could do Elke Gast’s work – in future, I can put almost anyone in front of them because the program sorts and assigns them itself.” But there’s still a lot to do before that happens. “We have around 1,000 different active assemblies from 20 to 30 different Excel spreadsheets. They all still have to be transferred to the Manager,” says Grimmig. The majority of these could be imported with the help of an import macro that Schamberger had developed by Lantek experts. “The rest are historically grown, very individual tables that do not follow a schema and are still entered manually.”

Encouraging customers to further develop the software

Customers like Arpogaus with their special requirements are very welcome to Lantek for the further development of the software. “The suggestions that weld seams for left and right components can be mirrored, or the import of 3D chamfers, were gladly accepted by our developers in Spain and will be part of the software update,” reports Schamberger. He has also passed on requests for report adjustments to the development department. And how is digitalization continuing at Arpogaus? There are plans to connect the Lantek software to Arpogaus’ ERP system in the medium term so that order data no longer has to be entered manually. “But we’re taking our time with this until our employees are familiar with the latest new software solutions,” says Grimmig. “Because we don’t want to overburden them and would rather take them along on our path to digitalization.”

Background

Lantek is a multinational company that is a leader in the digital transformation of companies in the sheet metal and metal industry. With its patented intelligent manufacturing software, it enables the networking of production facilities and turns them into smart factories. The range of services is rounded off by CAD/CAM/MES/ERP software solutions for manufacturers of sheet metal parts, tubes and profiles with different cutting (laser, plasma, oxyfuel, water jet, shearing) and punching processes. Founded in 1986 in the Basque Country (Spain), one of the most important European centers for the development of machine tools, the company enables the integration of sheet metal and metalworking technologies with state-of-the-art production management software. Lantek is currently the market leader in the sector, thanks to its innovative expertise and consistent internationalization strategy. With more than 32,000 customers in over 100 countries and 21 of its own offices in 15 countries, the company has an extensive network of distributors with a global presence.

Web: www.lantek.com/de