PuK - Process Technology & Components 2024

Pumps and Systems
Smart Factory
The intelligent path to the Smart Factory:
How “pain points” become future-proof use
cases thanks to the cloud
Andreas Dangl
With the help of a cloud-based data
and document management system,
pump specialist KSB not only
creates future-proof quality processes,
but also a close-knit ecosystem
along the entire supply chain.
The Deloitte study “Accelerating
smart manufacturing – The value of
an ecosystem approach” gets to the
heart of the matter: The fastest way
to a Smart Factory leads through
partnerships, e. g. in the form of close
interconnection with subcontractors
along the supply chain. Thus, companies
will not only save costs, but also
advance the digital transformation
and accelerate product life cycles.
In order to achieve this goal,
seamless interconnection is clearly
needed – in other words, secure,
multimodal real-time communication
throughout the entire ecosystem
as well as holistic decision-making,
which the responsible parties can
achieve by exchanging information
across all silo and company boundaries,
according to the study.
One German company that has already
mastered a large part of the path
to the Smart Factory is KSB Group.
With an annual sales revenue of 2.6
billion EUR and more than 15,000 employees,
it is one of the world’s leading
suppliers of high-quality pumps,
valves, and associated systems.
The pump plant in Pegnitz plays
a special role within the organization.
With around 1,600 employees, it is
one of the largest and most modern
locations in the KSB Group. It is also
the pilot location for 3D metal printing
– and the digital transformation.
Here, the responsible parties use individual
use cases to drive forward
the transformation to the Smart Factory,
which is intended to serve as a
model for other KSB plants and customers
around the world.
The company understands the term
“digital factory” as a kind of target
image. The destination of this journey
is flexible and modular production
that is highly automated, digitalized,
and fully interconnected, from
incoming orders to production planning
and outgoing logistics. “This is
the only way to ensure agile, lean,
and maximally customer-oriented
production, also in the future.” And:
“The smart automation of processes
in production plants offers immense
potential for increasing efficiency and
quality, reducing costs, and increasing
customer satisfaction as well as
competitiveness,” according to KSB’s
vision for digital transformation.
Thousands of working hours saved
The first use case at KSB shows which
benefits a shared data environment
along the value chain can bring. Project-related
mechanical engineering
in particular is subject to extensive
documentation requirements in
the course of the production of special
pumps. The supplier companies
are required to provide the necessary
documents in a timely manner. Different
specialist departments must in
turn check and approve these. If delays
occur in this process – regardless
of where in the supply chain they occur
– it is not uncommon for contractual
penalties and reputation damage
to occur.
The traditional handling of information
is not suitable for satisfactorily
fulfilling the documentation obligation.
All too often, documents are
stored in “silos”, e. g. in departmental
filing systems or e-mail inboxes,
which makes retrieving them a challenge.
Moreover, it happens easily to
find different versions of a document
in circulation. Each control measure
is therefore very time-consuming. For
instance, KSB used to spend around
130 hours tracking deadlines to obtain
the necessary documents for
each individual project.
This situation has fundamentally
changed with the introduction
of a cloud-based data and document
management system. The project
documents are now stored in a
shared data environment and are
available worldwide – always in the
latest version. They can be accessed
conveniently via a web interface,
which is available in different languages
on request.
Fig. 1: Running test plans using a mobile device, Photo © : Gorodenkoff Productions OU via
Getty Images, Fabasoft Approve
30 PROCESS TECHNOLOGY & COMPONENTS 2024