Digital Production with Top MES

The history of MULTIVAC began in 1961: Sepp Haggenmüller developed the legendary A4 – a vacuum chamber machine for packing food in film pouches – in the garage of his father’s company in Böhen. Around 60 years later, the MULTIVAC Group is a globally active company with its headquarters in Wolfertschwenden, more than 80 subsidiaries, 14 production sites and over 7,000 employees worldwide. Its core expertise primarily comprises the development and manufacture of machines and systems for processing, packing and handling food, industrial goods, medical and pharmaceutical products. In 2023 MULTIVAC achieved a turnover of 1.5 billion euros.

Motivation for digital production

In order to remain on its successful course in the future, MULTIVAC is creating the best conditions for further growth: This includes, among other things, the evidence-based optimization of production processes by means of a modern Manufacturing Execution System (MES). The company was already using an interface-based MES for its machinery at its main factory in Wolfertschwenden, as well as at other sites in Germany, Austria, Bulgaria and Spain. This made it possible to automatically record important parameters such as working time on individual machines or disruptions in the production process. However, this system did not transmit the recorded data to SAP in real time, but only at regular intervals.

“This sometimes led to delays in data processing,” reports Till Stubenvoll, SMART FACTORY Project Manager at MULTIVAC. “We were therefore aiming for a smooth transition to a new MES, with which we could speed up data processing.”

MULTIVAC’s catalog of requirements for top MES

Once the goal had been set, a team of experts at MULTIVAC defined an initial catalog of requirements for the future MES. This was to enable integrated data acquisition, starting with the sawing sub-process, through production at the machining centers to the final activities at the manual workstations,

• make all central information and documents from the PLM system (Product Lifecycle Management) Siemens Teamcenter available at the relevant workstations,
• enable improved integration into MULTIVAC’s existing IT system landscape,
• facilitate the support of OPC UA as a modern language standard for machines and
• allow a comparison of the tools required and those available at the workstation before starting a job.

In addition, the team of experts wanted an MES that would integrate seamlessly into the existing SAP landscape and contribute to more predictable costs thanks to its long-term license and service model. In their search for a suitable solution, the team finally came across top MES, the SAP-certified MES software from top flow.

A new concept emerges

Building on the existing catalog of requirements, the employees of the MULTIVAC Group and top flow formed a joint project team to further develop and refine the ideas in the catalog. In addition, the cross-company team divided the responsibilities between top flow and MULTIVAC. Marc Gnilka, SAP Consultant at top flow, reports on this:

“MULTIVAC has excellent IT specialists. For example, they are very familiar with the development of web services. This is why they independently took on all the necessary preparations for connecting the cloud-based PLM system Siemens Teamcenter to top MES. As a result, the subsequent integration went almost without a hitch.”

A special feature of MULTIVAC’s production is the interplay between a high degree of automation and human skill: computer-aided work on CNC machines supports traditional manual activities – particularly in the final phase of production. However, this also means that there is always a latent risk of media discontinuity.

“That is why it is necessary to manage the flow of information and materials as intelligently as possible, especially at interfaces,” Till Stubenvoll concludes. “Although this posed a challenge at first, we ultimately managed it very well after extensive discussions,” he adds.

Essentially, through its work, the project team optimized production in four key areas in particular:

Transfer of planning data from SAP and improved information flows
top MES now automatically transfers planning data from SAP production planning without an interface. The top MES message dialog also ensures that employees
in production can retrieve all important work documents, such as technical drawings, 3D models and tool lists, in a comprehensible format and bundled in one tool in good time at the workplace – regardless of the original source.

OPC-UA as the new Group standard
In conjunction with the introduction of the top MES, MULTIVAC also established OPC-UA as the new standard interface for machine communication within the company. This will make further automation much easier in future, as “communication difficulties” between the individual machines and the MES are no longer an issue.

Recording of faults
In contrast to the original system, top MES automatically records faults in all machine-related production processes via OPC UA. SAP can therefore display and process these in real time. To achieve this, the project team optimized the entire machine data acquisition (MDA). This leads to more reliable production processes, as the data helps to identify and rectify frequent faults at an early stage.

“It is important for us to have a modern MES that simplifies the transfer of planning data from SAP, for example, and supports employees in their work. With top MES, we have found the right system for this. ” Till Stubenvoll, SMART FACTORY Project Manager at MULTIVAC.

Collective logins
The project team implemented intuitively understandable and user-friendly login dialogs with a high level of user-friendliness for employees working in production. For example, collective logins are possible at the manual workstations. The project team also supplemented these four core elements with a range of useful features, such as

• the automatic starting and printing of production orders by top MES;
• the display of all tools required for the job at the workstation – including the option of requesting missing equipment via convenient top MES dialogs at the tool dispenser
  ;
• the provision of new NC programs with which employees in production can control the machines.

Further plans for digitalization with top MES

With top MES, the MULTIVAC Group now has a future-proof system. The success of the innovations that have been introduced confirms MULTIVAC’s intention to take the next steps towards the “Smart Factory” and to drive forward digitalization. First of all, however, the aim is to gradually extend the solution to other sites, for example in the USA.

Till Stubenvoll: “We have plenty of ideas for new projects, and we are already implementing some of them – for example, driverless transport systems. But following the successful implementation of top MES at the main plant and at two other sites in Europe, our focus is on the global rollout for the time being.”