No 202002

Plastic Industry

Sector story with Romwell

PlasticIndustry

Your requirements meet our standard.

Powerful and future-proof implementation of your smart factory!

#Ready to be convinced?

We know, that the plastic industry is one of the world‘s fastest-growing sectors. The reason for this is the increasing use of plastics in high-growth sectors.

Great opportunities for plastics processing can be found primarily in the production of in-dividualized, customer-specific pieces and the reducing of production time. With the de-velopments in the field of Industry 4.0, there is also an increasingly closer integration with suppliers and customers, as well as internal departments and between processes. Thanks to new technologies, even small batch sizes can be produced economically. The linkage along the value chain leads to a high level of information exchange.

A suitable enterprise solution helps to perfectly integrate these industry developments.

Creating opportunities with the right ERP systemEdmund Romberg & Sohn had been working as a dealer of gardening supplies since the 1950s - main-ly Iceland Moss, which is well known to many model makers as a necessary construction element. Howev-er, the trading company supplied this moss mainly for the production of wreaths, especially funeral wreaths. With a new packaging ordinance of the Federal Minis-try of the Environment at the beginning of the 1990s, the company Edmund Romberg & Sohn then entered the packaging business with just this material. In 1991, the present romwell GmbH & Co. KG was founded in Germany and produced corrugated board packaging. Since 2018, the company has been 100% owned by PartnerFonds AG.

Today, the product spectrum ranges from complex shaped parts made of corrugated board to a wide variety of folding systems and membrane padding packaging, as well as plates and padding profiles laminated in different variations. These are always customer-specific solutions with the aim of achieving optimum product protection with the simplest and most economical means possible. Meanwhile there are three product areas: The classic corrugated card-board pads, membrane pads and products from the so-called twist area. “Of course we have competitors in each of these segments today. But our advantage is that we develop the right packaging solution for the customer from all three packaging lines. This is unique in the market,” explains Oliver Krogh, Managing Di-rector of romwell GmbH. And IT manager Sven Appel adds: “We supply the customers with all the packaging material, and provide them with our self-developed packaging machines free of charge. This is of course interesting for our customers not least because of the low acquisition costs”.

The largest consumer industry is the automotive sector with about 20%. “This is due to the after-sales business with headlights, brake discs and other spare parts,” Oliver Krogh names the customer base. “But there are also many logistics companies that handle

returns for their customers or pack the products be-fore transport. Most of the turnover, namely 85%, is generated in Germany, the rest is exported to neigh-boring Europe. In the coming year, the company and its 100 employees want to break through the 20 mil-lion Euro turnover barrier.

Supporting growth with ERP

Since the company’s course had been on a growth path for some time, the company wanted to replace existing tools with an ERP system that would be a safe investment and future-proof. Up until 2009, IT de-partment tasks were still handled with the Microsoft standard products Access and Excel. “The creation of delivery bills and production planning was done via Excel and was mainly in the head of the production manager. The software Lexware was used for finan-cial accounting and Access also served us as a CRM module”, says Sven Appel. “Our wish was to manage all operationally relevant data - from the quotation to the order and production to invoicing - centrally in one system,” the IT manager looks back. Extensive market research was conducted, discussions were held at the Cebit trade fair and finally three ERP solutions were shortlisted: SAP, Microsoft Dynamics NAV and cania-sERP from IAS. “After the presentations Dynamics NAV and caniasERP remained in the selection. In terms of costs, the two did not differ much, but caniasERP was the much more flexible system,” remembers Oliver Krogh. This was the decisive point for the choice.

And so the decision, which was made jointly by the management, IT and department heads, was clearly in favor of the ERP standard caniasERP from the In-dustrial Application Software (IAS). “I would describe caniasERP as a kind of basic system. It contains an extensive basic construction kit with different func-tionalities I don’t have to care about. So in principle it fits for all industries”, Appel outlines the ERP solution. As an example, he mentions the document flow that takes place in the standard system from the creation of an offer to the invoice. “We need additional fields to

Customer Story Romwell

Creating opportunities with the right ERP system

fill out. And our forms look different,” continues the IT manager, “so we use what is available in the standard system and we can simply add the rest to it. That is the special thing about this system.“

Own adaptations and novelties

By this he means, among other things, the project management: Here, the process from a customer’s request to production and delivery of the goods is mapped. The company wanted to manage and track these processes in a separate transaction so that the order status is always known and the following steps can be prepared and scheduled by the office and de-velopment departments. “This was important so the project module, which was programmed especially for us, is so deeply integrated that you can click through to every customer, see their projects, the current sta-tus and even understand why variant B was used here and not variant A. Everything is documented,” says Ol-iver Krogh happily.

“We have also introduced an evaluation mod-ule with IAS, as our new owner requires a KPI which determines the performance of the company’s activities,” Except for personnel administration, al-most everything is now done with the new ERP system. And tools, like the budget module, which allows to create balance sheets or prof-it and loss statements from the system, will be integrated soon. Of course, some processes have also been reorganized. “If you introduce an ERP system, this is always an oppor-tunity to check yourself. If you then want to use the standard as much as possible, you should also adapt your processes accordingly,” knows the CEO.

Well organized project scheduling

“In caniasERP we were also able to develop a trans-action ourselves, which we constantly optimize”, describes Sven Appel: For the project planning it is important to record the first discussion contents of a sales person with a customer - for example to im-prove a breakage rate or to slim down the logistics. This then results in certain tasks, such as the sourcing of product samples - as CAD drawings or physically - so that development, the heart of the company, can get started with these key data. Development also adds how long it is likely to take. This also allows the downstream processes to be scheduled accordingly and everyone involved in the project is informed if an-ything changes. “We always have between 50 and 100 projects running at the same time. This now works very well”.

Another example is the connection of the construc-tion. If a new machine is designed there, no article is available in the system yet. Today the design depart-ment transfers the parts and material lists via the CAD application to the ERP system, where the articles are automatically generated with the corresponding arti-cle number and even standard suppliers are stored. This enables the purchasing department to order the complete machine. Changes made by the designers are automatically updated, including the drawings, and incorrect orders can thus be ruled out. The EDI module works perfectly as a standard interface in the ERP software.

Well positioned for the future

At romwell GmbH, the highlight of the ERP system caniasERP is its flexibility and openness: “caniasERP is extremely flexible and we can customize almost all transactions to our requirements. These are two big advantages compared to other ERP programs”, em-phasizes Sven Appel. This is made possible on the one hand by the source code provided by IAS and on

the other hand by the programming language and development environment TROIA de-

veloped by the software supplier. „For example, we have now created many

evaluations ourselves with which one can create liquidity reports and the like from the financial account-ing data. After all, I can design all dialogs myself” says the IT manag-er.

And Sven Appel also confirms: “Everyone likes to work with the sys-

tem because it works quite simply. The employee acceptance is very high. We

have made the experience that employees who come from other companies and have worked

with other systems appreciate caniasERP very much after a short time”.

Managing Director Oliver Krogh is satisfied: “We would never have been able to achieve what we do today in terms of productivity and revenue in the past. We used to manage 100 articles in the past, today we manage over 2,000. And thanks to the in-dividuality and flexibility of our ERP system, we can continue to grow step by step.” A look into the near future shows that the main topic at the moment is the complete budgeting. But the next step is already moving towards Industry 4.0: “We want to link up pro-duction and integrate the machines so that process data can be retrieved directly from them. Digitization in the warehouse and a number of manual processes that are still used today will be another topic for the coming year. Of course with IAS and canias4.0.”

“In caniasERP we were also able to

develop a transaction ourselves, which we constantly optimize”

1.Specific market requirementsSupply of a wide range of sectors and production of a wide variety of special and customer-specific re-quirements produced in low to very high volumes is a major feature. Demand is increasing for technologies that promote horizontal and vertical networking and open up potential. Collaboration across the entire value chain can create effective solutions here.

2.Digital transformation, new business models and further fields of innovation in products and pro-cessesProcess automation, sensor technology, and digital recording and processing of production data play an important role. The same applies to remote access to production plants. Technological developments are establishing new uses. This supports the develop-ment of product and process innovations.

3.Circular economyCircular economy, recycling and resource efficiency as well as the resulting product responsibility in the direction of sustainability, which is derived from en-vironmental, social and governance (ESG) principles, are at the center of business activities. As a result, the demand for good solutions in the area of re-source-saving processes, mechanical and chemical recycling, recycling systems for sorting and process-ing, and recyclate processing is growing strongly.

4.Increasing demand for packagingThe industry’s growth is further fueled by the increas-ing use of plastics in high-growth industries such as construction, automotive, aerospace, and electronics.

Benefits

Challenges ofthe sector

This is what

We offer you

/// Industry 4.0 Extensive IoT tools as well as Big Data support the path to the Smart Factory.

/// Full transparency Powerful real-time analysis and report-ing to control and identify potential.

/// Quality control Comprehensive quality control process-es along the value chain including analy-sis certificate.

/// Process orientation Industry-specific processes to optimize efficiency and machine utilization.

/// Traceability Ensuring traceability through production with raw materials on a batch basis.

/// Flexibility canias4.0 enables maximum flexibility and adaptability of all projects.

Essential

Modules

Specific and focused

Your industry solution - plastic industryThe business solution canias4.0 for the plastic industry supports you in increasing the quality level of your products and solution offerings, promotes your process competence and innovative ability as well as high efficiency, flexibility and productivity. In addi-tion, customer orientation and adherence to delivery dates can be controlled in the best possible way. With canias4.0, you can build a perfectly functioning value network as well as an outstanding research infrastructure.

Enterprise Resource PlanningThe canias4.0 offering includes a standard ERP solu-tion that is specifically designed to meet the needs of the industry. It offers all the necessary modules and features to appropriately map and support processes and projects - from production to materials manage-ment, procurement to financial accounting. And all of this at the very latest state of the art. At the same time, with canias4.0 we offer you a flexible solution that can be adapted to your individual needs at any time. That is the unique advantage of canias4.0.

Industry 4.0Our solution has a modular structure. This means you can add functionality to meet your requirements at any time and adapt it flexibly thanks to the open-source structure. The comprehensive ERP system is integrated with our Industry 4.0 technology. The port-folio includes IoT tools and devices and our powerful database management system iasDB, so that you can collect, store, manage and evaluate all relevant data and thus perfectly control and optimize your smart factory.

CloudOf course, we also give you full mobility, individu-ality and security: canias4.0 can be used as a cloud solution. This means you can take advantage of the providers’ high availability, flexibility, speed, and ex-pertise without having to make large investments in hardware. If requirements change, the infrastructure can be easily scaled accordingly.

Asset Management

Sales Management

Project Management

Basic Data Management

Purchasing Management

Quality Management

Document Management

Bill of Material Management

Routing Management

Inventory Management

Production Management

Maintainance Management

Thanks to the flexible structure of canias4.0, in addi-tion to standard applications, processes such as the alternative product tree specific to the plastic indus-try, customized production with raw materials of dif-ferent characteristics, management of preparation times in production, code structure, mold design and management can be easily managed.

Project management structureThe project management structure allows products to be viewed, produced, and tracked as projects. Thus, canias4.0 supports, among other things, feasibility analyses, product designs, mold construction and management, quality processes, fund management, reminder of important project points and calculation of product costs using easy-to-run applications.

Product design and sample managementcanias4.0 easily enables the implementation of pro-jects according to the customer’s design or the com-pany’s own product design. Before production starts, the sample creation and tracking application sup-ports the process for samples that are first tested in the company’s laboratories and submitted to the cus-tomer for production approval.

End-to-end traceability of the productsParticularly in high-volume production, as is common in the plastic industry, production is carried out with raw materials on a batch basis. In this way, the trace-ability of the product is guaranteed.

Quality control and vendor evaluationProducts manufactured according to certain quality standards can be subject not only to an operation-al quality control but also to quality controls on the customer side. This includes the management of Cer-tificates of Analysis (CoA) that are submitted to the customer for approval, including the quality control samples. In addition, quality and process quality con-trols can be carried out on incoming goods together with vendor evaluations on a multi-criteria basis.

Change management and alternative material managementAs part of comprehensive change management, all changes that directly affect the product, production and costs can be reported, managed and tracked.

This concerns, for example, product design, product trees, route. In addition, a special product formula change management is available. Alternative material management enables mixtures to be produced using alternative raw materials. These can be tracked in the system.

MobilityThe ability to run canias4.0 on a mobile basis, for ex-ample on industrial tablets, means that processes and internal company logistics movements can be managed smoothly.

Exactly what you need

These are the features we offer

Specific

Solutions

Codes: Production can be carried out with codes assigned by the manufacturer or with those provided by the customer.

Mold Management: For specific customer molds, different methods can be used for product mold creation and the manage-ment and depreciation of these molds to support their traceability.

Setup Time Management: It is one of the essential processes to manage the prepara-tion times. During capacity planning, formu-las are used to minimize these times.

Customized production: It can be ensured that a product is manufactured according to customer requirements using raw materials with different standards or specifications.

Alternative BOM: A product can have sev-eral alternatives, which appears as a formu-la in its designation.

www.canias40.com