Viadat not only integrates a variety of logistics systems, but above all manages all production supply processes. The software performs the classic tasks of a Manufacturing Execution System (MES).

This creates the basis for the production of a varied, design-oriented kitchen line at marketable prices. Venne in the Osnabrücker Land region - a village between mountain and moor. The way there leads through a lot of grassland, along babbling brooks, through yellow cornfields, past grazing cows. Until suddenly a large industrial building appears on the horizon, which doesn't quite fit into the idyllic picture. It is Häcker Küchen's newest location, Plant 5. Häcker is one of the largest kitchen manufacturers in Germany, with a total of more than 2,000 employees at the Venne and Rödinghausen sites and a turnover of 646 million euros in the 2020 financial year.

Plant 5 went into operation in August 2020 after less than two years of construction. Around 300 employees on a production area of around 110,000 square meters manufacture furniture for fitted kitchens here. "The investment in the new plant was the largest in the company's history," explains Dirk Krupka, Managing Director Technology at Häcker. "The capacities of our Rödinghausen site were fully utilized, and any disruptions in production there would have had a direct impact on the delivery date to the customer." For this reason alone, it was necessary to expand production capacity.

Production of a new kitchen line

"We have also launched a new product line on the market that we would not have been able to produce in any of our previous plants." Krupka is talking about the Systemat 3.0 product line, a design-oriented kitchen that offers even more options for kitchen planning in a 13-unit grid. The fronts can be painted in 192 RAL colors or can be selected with plastic or real wood fronts. There is also a choice of different fitting systems. This means that no two kitchens are the same. "The logistical demands are quite extreme. We only manufacture to customer order, which means we have complete batch size 1 production," emphasizes Dirk Krupka.

Controlled material flows through the entire plant

To achieve this, the aim when planning the new plant was to completely control the material flow. "There is no undefined material status," explains Friedbernd Bartels, Head of Technical Projects at Häcker. "Every material movement is controlled according to the source-destination principle and every movement, every work step, is reported back to the system." The special feature here is that this control of material flows throughout the plant is carried out using Viastore's Viadat software. "We were familiar with Viastore and the possibilities of the software, which go far beyond a warehouse management and material flow management system. We had already built our first high-bay warehouse with Viastore in 1999," reports Krupka. In numerous discussions and workshops, Häcker came to the conclusion that Viadat should also take on the tasks of a classic production control system, ranging from material tracking to monitoring movements. "The production supply and disposal required by Häcker is a standard requirement for Viadat," emphasizes Peer Leemhuis, who supervised the project on the Viastore side. Coupling with the control systems of different logistics systems and technologies is also part of everyday life for the system - even if there are a few more of these than usual in Häcker's Plant 5: in addition to a 16-aisle high-bay warehouse, an electric monorail system, a shuttle warehouse, a gantry picking system and five pick-by-light and two put-to-light storage areas are also integrated. Viadat also functions as a forklift and AGV control system with nine driverless transport vehicles.

Complex processes controlled on time

"In addition, the material flows at Häcker involve special requirements and structures that are unique," says Leemhuis. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that the production effort and the variance of the various components of the kitchen cabinets - carcass, front, drawers - are very different. On the other hand, the production of a kitchen and the associated cabinets must be timed so that all the required components arrive at the dispatch department on time for the planned delivery date - and in the order in which they are loaded onto the truck to the customer, i.e. the kitchen retailer. The entire process begins with production being planned from the end. Based on the delivery time, the order for a kitchen is broken down and it is calculated when the production process for which component has to start so that everything comes together on time at the end of the overall process. Krupka: "The scheduling of our fleet - we currently have almost 100 trucks - ultimately determines our production program." All processes are managed in such a way that they take place in exactly the order in which they are required. This guarantees lean operating processes, short throughput times and a generally high level of efficiency.

Various process steps in carcass assembly

Häcker has divided the production into different processes in order to do justice to the different variations and therefore production costs of the various components of a cabinet: The carcase components are divided into A, B and C parts. A-parts are assemblies that are very frequently required in the same variant - for example, standard base units in white. They are transferred directly from the high-bay warehouse (HRL) on pallets via the electric monorail system (EMS) to the automated guided vehicle system and transported to the assembly station. Viadat receives the corresponding replenishment request from the final assembly line via a database interface. Viadat is also the leading system for the AGV: it takes care of order control, recording and booking the load unit with the respective stock.

Picking the B and C parts is more complex, as the variance here is significantly higher: this includes tall cabinets or colored cabinet sides, for example. Some of the components are transported from the high-bay warehouse via the EMS to an automatic picking station, where they are stored on pallets by 6-axis robots. These are either taken directly to the assembly stations, undergo further processing or are temporarily stored in a buffer warehouse. Dirk Krupka: "Thanks to the various buffer stores, we can decouple the logistical processes from each other and thus achieve greater process reliability." Other parts come from surface processing or are retrieved manually and run via various warehouses to a picking area. Here they are picked into stacks and then transported to the assembly area. Viadat organizes all transports and warehouse movements, manages the respective stocks and provides the dialogues and data for the processing stations.

Fronts and drawers just in sequence

The process for the fronts is similarly complex: Coming from the high-bay warehouse or surface treatment, they are temporarily stored in a shuttle warehouse, where they are stored manually, thus still allowing quality control of the individual fronts and boards. Buffering ensures that a pallet with the required raw fronts is retrieved from the high-bay warehouse at freely configurable times as required. Only the parts required for the next working day are picked from this pallet. The trays are removed from the buffer in the correct sequence and transported to a removal station where gantry robots remove the fronts for further processing. If necessary, they are then transported to drilling systems where the boards are perforated and fitted with hinges. Robots then assemble the prepared fronts in so-called rack trolleys, in which they are finally transported to the assembly area, where they are married to the carcass. Here, too, Viadat controls all storage and transport movements, takes over stock management in the shuttle warehouse and supplies the workstations and machines with the relevant processing information. At the same time, the drawers are manufactured and temporarily stored in a buffer warehouse.

"We know when which carcase has been released via the production system control," explains Krupka. "The pull-outs and drawers are added in sync with this and, together with the fittings and the associated fronts, are delivered to the corresponding carcase at exactly the right time." All transports to the assembly area are organized by Viadat just in time and just in sequence, and stocks are precisely recorded and managed. Friedbernd Bartels adds: "The components are not identified by stickers or barcodes on the components. The sequence in which the components are passed through production or picked is completely paperless." This means that Viadat knows where each component is currently located at all times. "There is no other manufacturing execution system - the only higher-level system with which Viadat still communicates is the ERP system, which determines the dispatch sequence and the sequences in production," says Peer Leemhuis.

Enormous transaction volume

Even though Viadat masters production supply as standard, production at Häcker presented the system with a challenge, as Leemhuis continues: "If you consider that each cabinet consists of many parts, each part goes through several process steps and each time represents an order item in Viadat, the resulting transaction behavior in Viadat is extremely high." As part of the project, Viastore once again optimized the databases that Viadat works with.

More than just a warehouse management system

"All in all, we have realized production in the new plant that allows us to manufacture an enormously diverse range at marketable prices," says Dirk Krupka, drawing a positive conclusion. He sees Viastore as an important system supplier: "With Viastore, we had a reliable partner during project implementation, with whom we were able to implement the system on time despite time pressure." In addition, by using Viadat in production, Häcker has reduced the number of system interfaces in order to achieve stable production. "With Viadat, we were able to implement processes that are the foundation for high quality at the customer. We are absolutely convinced that competition is decided by logistics," says Krupka and adds: "Viadat has shown how much potential it has - with the term warehouse management, it is clearly selling itself short."

The article appeared in materialfluss 4/22.