Industrial Machinery and Heavy Equipment

Enhancing water movement and management technologies
Founded in 1975, DAB Pumps S.p.A. (DAB Pumps) is a multinational organization with seven production sites, 12 sales branches and a total workforce of more than 1,500 that specializes in water movement and management technologies. The distinguishing features of DAB Pumps technologies are reliability, quality and efficiency. The aim is to identify simpler installation, and use and maintain solutions for domestic, residential, civil and commercial applications as well as agricultural irrigation systems.

Siemens facilitates digital transformation
DAB Pumps refers to their digital transformation strategy as the DAB Digital Evolution (DDE). The DDE supports a new digital strategy that links DAB Pumps’ values to new digital opportunities.

“We are working to build an open-minded digital culture, developing innovative and engaging projects and designing solutions in which technology works for people,” says Sandro Stramare, group chief executive officer (CEO) of DAB Pumps.

According to Paolo Menon, group chief operation officer (COO) of DAB Pumps, “Our factory of the future represents an important step to close the loop between our customers and factories. It’s a way to interconnect all the elements that create value and is an effective end-to-end process that supports a new set of services and connected products to transform the customer experience.”

Looking to facilitate a successful digital transformation, DAB Pumps benchmarked multiple software solutions by using a digital sourcing evaluation to find the best fit for their company. After an exhaustive search, DAB Pumps decided the Siemens Digital Industries Software Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) portfolio of solutions best suited their needs.

“We scanned many solutions in the market and we came to Siemens because we think the most important dimension is the willingness to become a partner and not simply a supplier,” says Enrico Pana, group logistic manager and digital manager for operations, DAB Pumps. “Siemens is meeting our expectations in terms of integration with third-party systems, discrete manufacturing features and standard solutions.”

DAB Pumps manufactures what the customer wants, and in order to have the best time-to-market and connected products in the market, they adhere to the lean production method of minimizing waste without sacrificing productivity.

The Siemens solution, Opcenter Execution Discrete, helped change the manufacturing process for DAB Pumps. It allows them to track every step of their product process, serialize each water pump and introduce better control/visibility of management over production process and paperless manufacturing.

Additionally, DAB Pumps employs Siemens’ Opcenter Intelligence and Opcenter AS to make their processes more efficient through effective resource utilization.

Opcenter Intelligence is used to precisely map DAB Pumps’ production process by providing a centralized system integrated with business functions to eliminate paper usage while improving visibility and control over production process/data. Using Opcenter AS allows DAB Pumps to more efficiently manage their production plan in order to support their clients’ changing needs.

The Mestrino plant, (Dab Pumps Headquarter).

Business and technical challenges
DAB Pumps faced major business challenges in managing production and satisfying their clients’ fluid requirements. The company identified two reasons for these challenges: First, there were difficulties sharing information within the company, which led to a siloed approach, and second, there was limited visibility within the company into production activities.

The technical challenges DAB Pumps faced were mainly due to lots of manual activities, significant use of paper and very limited availability of digitally shared data related to critical activities and performed by operators with extensive experience and skills (work instructions, test results, nonconformities). DAB Pumps was facing issues like using spreadsheet software for manual scheduling and work-in-process (WIP) management software, and manual inventory and collecting quality data by hand or that was left on automatic stations.

Benefits of Siemens’ solutions
By introducing a manufacturing execution system (MES)/MOM solution based on Opcenter Execution Discrete and Opcenter AS, the problem of siloed data was largely eliminated. That’s because there was now a bi-directional level of communication between the enterprise resource planning (ERP), product lifecycle management (PLM) business systems and the shop floor, allowing for greater and immediate control of the business on the production floor. Also, using Opcenter Execution Discrete enabled off-the-shelf support for WIP, tracking and inventory control. Further, it improved operator activities due to electronic work instructions (EWI) features and manual and automatic quality control while also facilitating creation of a centralized quality data archive. Opcenter AS is integrated with Opcenter Execution Discrete to create a proactive scheduling approach, which provided DAB Pumps with more accurate delivery dates, supply demand synchronization and effective resource utilization.

Using Opcenter AS production scheduling improves the synchronization of DAB Pumps’ manufacturing processes, providing greater visibility and control. This enables DAB Pumps to increase resource utilization and on-time delivery while reducing inventory levels and waste.

Opcenter Intelligence is used by DAB Pumps at the plant level to improve collaboration and data exchange between the plant floor and enterprise systems. As data from different sources are combined, they can be put into a new context or aggregated to provide team leaders with a different and more complete perspective of operations regardless of where the data originated.

Optimizing the entire value chain through digitalization
“Digitalization was not a matter of choice for DAB Pumps,” says Stramare. “We are adapting to what is happening at a world-wide level. DAB Pumps embraced digitalization mainly to create value within our company. We believe that digitalizing our company increases the creation of value in all company areas, and we believe that digitalization is not only an epochal change at a worldwide economic level, but it helps companies increase efficiency, and enhances and creates value in the production and sales processes. This is the main reason why DAB Pumps strongly believes in digitalization and is pushing the digitalization of its processes.”

Reshaping the potato starch industry

As a leading global player in the potato starch market, Royal Avebe has been reshaping the industry for over a century. Avebe was founded by local farmers in the Netherlands back in 1919. Since then, the small group of farmers has grown to more than 2000 members in the Netherlands and Germany.

Today, Avebe produces potato starch and potato protein, used in food and industrial applications. To get the most out of the potato, they are always looking for innovative solutions and products. Like any other company operating in a dynamic marketplace, Avebe faces its fair share of challenges, including keeping up with changing customer needs and market trends.

As consumer preferences shift towards healthier, natural, and clean-label products, Avebe continuously works to stay ahead of the curve. By investing in research and development, Avebe strives to create starch-based solutions that not only cater to evolving dietary requirements but also enhance the quality and taste of food products.

Avebe’s digitalization journey with Siemens and ATS Global

In their relentless pursuit of innovation and sustainability, Avebe recognized the need to embrace digital transformation to address the challenges in their industry. To achieve this, they teamed up with Siemens, a global technology leader, and ATS Global, a trusted solution partner specializing in IT and OT integration.

Through this strategic collaboration, Avebe embarked on a digitalization journey that revolutionized their production processes. By leveraging Siemens’ cutting-edge IT/OT integrated solutions, Avebe could, on one hand, reduce the workload for the operators, and on the other gained unprecedented insights into their operations, enabling them to optimize efficiency, increase productivity, and ensure consistent quality throughout their production lines.

The implementation of Siemens’ advanced technologies, such as Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) platforms and data analytics tools, empowered Avebe to capture real-time data from their production facilities. With this data, Avebe can monitor key performance indicators, identify bottlenecks, and make data-driven decisions to drive continuous improvement.

ATS Global played a pivotal role in integrating Avebe’s IT and OT systems seamlessly. They delivered an MES/MOM system that included integration into ERP and shop floor.

The benefit of having one partner both on the IT and the OT is that they can see solutions for problems you don’t have yetJan Hessel Veurink, Manufacturing IT Engineer at Avebe

“We are utilizing our knowledge with our customers because we realized a long time ago that the IT and OT is so complex that it’s very difficult for the customers to follow. If you have to discuss this with single points, it gets very complicated very quickly”, says Rob Valent, Global Partner Manager at ATS Global “and our customers want a partner to help them basically reducing the complexity and not add complexity.”

By embracing digitalization, Avebe is able to tackle the growing demand for sustainable solutions head-on. Through optimized production processes and precise control over resources, Avebe significantly reduced waste, minimized environmental impact, and paved the way for a more sustainable future.

“The benefit of working with a company like Siemens is that it offers such a broad portfolio of IT / OT solutions, that we can select the solutions that best suit the customer needs.” says Rob

Using Siemens Opcenter, leading chemicals company streamlines production with digital manufacturing

BASF, one of the world’s largest chemical companies, has achieved the highest levels of operational excellence by streamlining the production of their crop protection solutions for soil management, plant health, pest control and digital farming. Their Xemium® product is an active and environmentally safe fungicide that enables highly reliable crop protection for greater yields, helping growers combine profitability with environment protection.

Xemium production runs 24 hours a day, 365 days per year and involves both continuous and batch processes as well as laboratory analyses for quality control and end-of-line packaging. BASF sought a digital solution that would help them reliably produce and package their fungicides, improve production transparency, and maximize productivity. They chose Siemens Opcenter as their foundation for digital manufacturing.

Opcenter allowed BASF to create vertical process integration, closing the digital gap between ERP and SCADA systems. Quality control was integrated throughout their digitalized production processes, with handheld scanners improving their data acquisition from operations.

The result was a complete digital thread that streamlined their manufacturing operations, reducing their batch production time by 5 to 10 percent. They were able to eliminate 5 days of manual paperwork per month by digitalizing their processes and capturing production data automatically. Their fungicide supply was delivered on a more timely schedule for their customers, promoting sustainable, high-yield farming.