IFAO case studies

IFAO case studies - in use for you worldwide

We can draw on a wealth of experience from more than 30 years of implementation-oriented project work in German and internationally.

Working with a broad client case has allowed us to perfect our engagement procedures to the specific application, to always achieve the best possible results.

Experience some of our case studies and gain insights into the different proven methods and concepts our local consultants have implemented.

As part of the global expansion ambitions and optimization of the production-network of an OEM, our IFAO LEAN experts successfully designed and implemented the company's ‘Change Process’ at more than 25 production sites worldwide.

We successfully established a culture of continuous improvement by integrating and involving the full workforce, from the boardroom to the shopfloor.

The client is still considered a benchmark of competitiveness and agility due to this LEAN culture implementation.

Ten years later, the production system is still an integral part of the value chain and the core of the organization.
What started out as a deliberative process has now become best practice in leading and implementing Operational Excellence.

Parallel to planning the building design, our factory planning experts developed the rough and detailed layout for the 40,000 m² new location of a well-known OEM in the aviation industry.

Using a methodical approach and strong collaboration with the process experts from the client, our experts planned all direct and indirect process areas for the 1,500 employees as well as the integration of the system technology into the building.

With more than 200 highly specialized technologies, material handling systems, machining centers and warehousing technology in logistics through to water treatment, the realization of value flow in rough planning presented a special challenge.

In addition to the processes, our consultants were responsible for defining the building-side interfaces. They worked very closed with the system suppliers to plan all necessary supply and media points for the technologies used.

The execution of the detailed layout in 3D, as well as the dynamic simulation of selected areas of the material flow, guaranteed our customer the implementation of an effective LEAN production system with complex production facilities.

Medium businesses are known to be the engine of the German economy, with the engineering industry standing out due to its excellent international reputation.These companies invest successfully in cutting-edge product technologies and handle their resources and processes in a smart and disciplined way.

Nevertheless, the competitive environment is also intensifying in this space, which explains the need for continuous optimization.

In this case our LEAN consultants have developed a tailor-made production system for a "hidden champion" in the engineering industry.  

To ensure that the current optimization potential in the organization is being used in the very best way and in order to increase competitive advantage, the learnings from the existing product and process designs werealso included in the analysis.

In order to avoid an over-extension of the company´s capacity, but still to better inter-link individual process flows, the opportunities of digitalization were selectively deployed in some areas.

Through the consistent implementation of the LEAN principles from the cycle production, the throughput times for small batches and one-off production can be halved and productivity increases of 25% achieved.

 

We partnered with an OEM in the aerospace industry with more than 12,000 employees and carried out systematic change management in all organizations in 4 locations. The employees actively inspired and implemented the changes.

The foundation for such a process is that new impetus is given a platform in the organization. This ensures that the resulting modifications are not only prioritized but also effectively implemented.

As is so often the case, it was not the lack of ideas that was missing, but the instigation and the necessary framework to position the recommendations.

Under the leadership of our consultants, using well-known methods and systematic execution, we not only identified the opportunity at hand, but also introduced the culture of change.The ongoing dialogue with the customer ensured a high degree of transparency and approval for the defined goals.

This procedure paves the way for further optimization, even in highly optimized large organizations, by providing a platform for in-house ideas from employees and executives to make a significant contribution to the improvement.

Our customers operate in highly efficient production systems with global supply chains. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems constitute the backbone of the organization, controlling the governing processes and global operations of the organization.

However, these systems typically do not provide all the functions for controlling and analyzing value streams in a flexible and dynamic manner.

This is where Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) and the underlying technologies for the production and machine data acquisition (PDA / MDA) come into play.

For an OEM in the consumer goods sector, IFAO AG's consultants, took on the role of independent advisors. We coordinated and assimilated the client’s functional requirements across all locations, and benchmarked them against the supplier solutions, recommending an ME system and designing the associated system architecture.

The resulting blueprint allowed for a system selection, which not only integrated the detailed scheduling functions but also the quality system requirements.

Today, this system not only allows the company to plan more efficiently but also to do preventive planning as well. The system provides a completely transparent and real-time production control.

This system architecture’s flexible integration platform makes it easy to integrate future functions and equipment. This is a further step towards digital production.

«