GERMANY
Hauni has now created a digital system for the tobacco industry in partnership with its subsidiary ISIS – a specialist in the development of industrial software.
“Due to the Hauni network, we can draw on expertise encompassing virtually every processing plant, machine, accessory, service, and process in the industry,” explains Tomas Fock, head of special products and business development. “To ISIS, the cooperation with Hauni is the perfect match for developing and implementing an MES system.”
The key functionalities of the Hauni MES include recipe, order, and booking management as well as warehouse management, production planning & scheduling, NTM supply management, brand change support/execution, and production performance monitoring and optimization. “In the development process, we focused particularly on meeting the unique needs of the sector. ISIS designed a system which is easy to use and can be adapted to specific customer requirements,” says Fock. “In daily production, MES supplies detailed information about current machinery status, interfaces, and processes. The system can be extended with the AREO software suite which offers real-time options for monitoring, control, optimization, and automation of all the processes, logistics, machines, and production systems.”
MES clients are available as mobile apps for tablets and are deployed and managed centrally via a mobile device management tool. MES records the effects of each decision very accurately based on a model of production processes developed using Hauni’s deep understanding of processes in the tobacco industry. “’What-would-happen-if’ analyses show the effects of management decisions in a very clear and intuitive way,” explains Fock. “The system also improves tobacco yield considerably by integrating the primary and secondary. MES enables us to optimize the specifications of the primary to fulfill the yield targets of the secondary. After primary production is run, the secondary process is adapted to process the cut filler delivered by primary in the best possible way.”
For Fock, MES shows how big data and networking can combine with knowledge of the sector, machines, and processes to create solutions which become key elements for the materialization of benefits in real tobacco factory life.“
We have a rule for all our strategies and ideas in the areas of digitization and Industry 4.0 – they must offer clear added value for our customers and also be modules we can use to support clients on their journey to Industry 4.0,” said Fock. “ This will enable them to achieve further important savings and optimizations in the future.”