Industry:
Automotive suppliers, metalworking, powertrain and chassis technology
Key Technologies:
SAP ERP, FlexGuide Forklift Guidance System, FlexWIP Warehouse Management
Areas of Application:
Manufacturing, material flow, WIP inventory management, intralogistics
Key Features:
Centralized forklift control in SAP, inventory management for semi-finished products, transparent inventory levels, reduced search times, and fewer empty runs
Forklift Guidance System optimizes SAP production
ZF is reshaping – Forklift guidance system handletorques material flow control at one of the company’s largest sites with over 8,000 employees. In Schweinfurt, ZF Friedrichshafen AG controls the material storage and transport in the area of forming technology with software solutions by Flexus AG.
Housing washers, cover plates, hub washers and spring washers: these and many other sheet metal and solid parts are punched and pressed on around 30 machines at the plant of ZF Friedrichshafen AG in Schweinfurt. They are then processed into torque con- verters, clutches and other drive modules. Around 500 tons of steel are processed in three work shifts in the area of sheet metal forming alone. The material flow required for this is guaran- teed by a fleet of front end loader forklifts, which is now controlled by a forklift guidance system.
Tobias Schubert, who works for ZF in the department of change management, recalls: “In the past, each production area used to have its own forklift trucks which were used on a decentralized basis”.
In the course of restructuring, all non-value-adding activities of the individual production departments in the logistics area were then grouped together. This is why the central fleet of forklift trucks and the need for a forklift guidance system arose.
ZF is a leading global technology group specializing in powertrain and chassis technology, as well as active and passive safety technology. The company has 137,000 employees at 230 locations in 40 countries. In 2016, ZF generated revenue of approximately 35 billion euros. ZF is one of the world’s largest automotive suppliers.
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The entire SAP production process in the metal forming division of ZF Friedrichshafen AG is managed via the FlexGuide transport/forklift guidance system for SAP and supplied with the necessary materials. A request dialog (FLX-PAD) is used to create transport orders directly at the machines. This ensures not only a seamless, machine-to-machine supply of production materials but also the transfer and management of work-in-process (WIP) inventory directly in SAP.
Like an open-heart surgery
Prior to its introduction, however, the entire mate- rials-handling technology in the area of forming technology was put to the test at ZF. Instead of using front end loader forklifts, we also considered the use of route trains with a milk run system,” reports Kai Schlösser, who is responsible for logistics in the forming technology sector. However, the demand-oriented production of around 3,000 articles with a wide variety of tools and up to 10 processing steps does not allow for a regular time- table.
Against this background, tugger trains were out of the question. “We can only achieve the required flexi- bility in the supply and disposal of production with front end loader forklifts,” says Schlösser.
While searching for a suitable forklift guidance system, the manufacturer of stamped and formed parts for powertrain and chassis technology quickly turned its attention to Würzburg-based Flexus AG. “Flexus is one of the market leaders in this field and was able to offer us a solution—the FlexGuide transport guidance system / forklift guidance system—that is already directly integrated into SAP,” says Schlösser.
Against this background, tugger trains were out of the question. “We can only realize the required flexibility in the supply and disposal of production with front-end stackers,” Schlösser notes. In his search for a proper forklift guidance system, the manufac- turer of stamped and formed parts for drive and chassis technology quickly became aware of Flexus AG in Würzburg.
50% saved
The new solution calls for forklifts to be requested via a transport order. This order is automatically generated by the forklift dispatch system as soon as an employee reports, via SAP®, the completion of a production order or the need for packaging material for the interlayers in the mesh boxes. FlexGuide tracks the current utilization of all forklifts and, based on various priorities and algorithms, optimally assigns the new order to the nearest available vehicle.
The forklifts are equipped with a forklift terminal featuring a large touchscreen, which drivers can use to access all information about upcoming jobs and confirm completed transports. This makes it possible to almost completely avoid empty runs, resulting in excellent results: Thanks to centralization and FlexGuide , the number of forklifts has been reduced from 13 to just 7. With an increasing number of transport orders and transport volumes, this corresponds to a savings of over 50%.
Integrated WIP-Warehouse
At ZF, however, due to complex production steps and varying machine utilization rates, internal trans- ports usually do not lead directly to the next pro- duction stage, but almost always to a buffer inven- tory. The so-called work-in-process warehouse, WIP for short, was created at the time of the change- over of the forklift fleet. It replaces various small buffer storages in the production areas and makes the storage areas noticeably more compact: “Thanks to the disorganized central WIP warehouse, we were able to reduce the space required for semi-finished products by 15 percent,” emphasizes Peter Metz, who is responsible for the WIP warehouse. Whereas the former decentralised buffer storages used to be managed manually with FiFo boards, the central WIP warehouse with over 3,000 different articles required computer-aided management.
“We needed a warehouse management system with its own logic for the storage, transfer and retrieval of goods,” explains Timo Henz, who is employed at ZF as a logistics planner. The SAP system installed at ZF was not able to meet these requirements, which is why the company opted for an SAP add-on by Flexus.
” Flexus is one of the market leaders and was able to provide us with the transport/forklift guidance system
Kai Schlösser
FlexGuide offers a solution that is already directly integrated into SAP.”
Head of Logistics, Metal Forming Technology
ZF Friedrichshafen AG
Minimized search times
The SAP specialists in Würzburg have developed the FlexWIP Warehouse Management software for this use case. It allows materials that are not yet tracked as inventory in SAP to be stored in specific locations and retrieved again.
This ensures that the material is always clearly assigned to the production order and the respective processing stage. The solution is based on mobile applications that can be used on both mobile data collection devices (“MDEs”) and forklift terminals, regardless of the specific device. At ZF, however, FlexWIP not only complements the SAP merchandise management system but also the FlexGuide forklift guidance system. The solution detects whether a mesh box needs to be moved into the WIP warehouse, out of the WIP warehouse, or directly from the machine to the next production stage. Thanks to FlexWIP warehouse management, inventory management within the WIP warehouse is transparent. Additionally, the current location of the materials can be determined at any time.
In conclusion
With Flexus’s solutions, ZF was able to significantly increase efficiency. Search times in the WIP warehouse were minimized, as were the need for storage spaces, forklifts, and their empty runs. In a subsequent phase, the SAP WM (Warehouse Management) system will be integrated into FlexGuide so that customer orders are transmitted in real time as travel orders
to the forklifts. All inventory postings will then take place automatically in the background. The metal forming operations at the Schweinfurt site were just the first pilot; in the future, the FlexGuide transport/forklift guidance system will therefore also be rolled out to other ZF production areas and locations.
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