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Schwering & Hasse Ensures Quality Manufacturing at High Speed Using Apama
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics
Applicable Industries
- Metals
Applicable Functions
- Quality Assurance
Services
- System Integration
The Challenge
Schwering & Hasse (S&H), a Germany-based company, manufactures a large volume of copper magnet wire, a critical component of numerous electrical products. The manufacturing process requires minute tolerances for the insulation, with even a tiny deviation from the specification rendering the wire useless. S&H's mission is to manufacture as much wire as possible with as few errors as possible. However, the company faced challenges in maintaining high quality standards due to rapidly changing customer demands and product specifications. The existing information systems were not equipped to create a factory that was truly “transparent” to both line workers and managers. The company needed a system that could provide immediate and accurate visibility into multiple production quality factors in real time.
About The Customer
Schwering & Hasse (S&H) is a Germany-based company that specializes in the manufacture of copper magnet wire. The company operates 400 production lines 24 hours a day to produce enough magnetized copper wire each year to stretch beyond Venus. Copper magnet wire, which is coated with a thin layer of insulation, is a critical component of numerous electrical products, such as transformers and motors. The company works with many of the world’s leading manufacturers, such as Siemens®, Bosche® and Continental®. S&H processes over a million euros per day in copper, employing hundreds of people and using prodigious amounts of electricity.
The Solution
S&H selected Apama as the platform for its new quality management solution. Apama gives S&H the ability to monitor dozens of independent quality factors in real time and process them against relevant production data. For example, Apama enables S&H to be aware of specific machines, copper lots, workers and production parameters such as temperature—all in the context of historical manufacturing data. The system can handle up to 50,000 production events per second, more than enough headroom to keep up with the production lines. Apama provided S&H with a complete toolset to design and implement the quality management solution across its complete “transparent factory.” The developer tools made it possible to create factory-floor-level interfaces using screens that line workers could use to monitor quality and input data of their own.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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