The Digital Transformation of Manufacturing: Industry 4.0

The IIoT platform toii® determines and analyzes basic data from 40 manufacturing components at thyssenkrupp Materials Schweiz AG – and thus serves as the basis for optimizing production.

The challenge for thyssenkrupp Materials IoT

thyssenkrupp Materials Schweiz AG supplies customers in the B2B sector with premium metals, including tool steel, powder metallurgy steel, stainless steel, structural steel, and many non-ferrous metals. Alongside pure distribution, the company also boasts an extensive range of machinery with a diverse number of processing options. Its key competences lie in chipping production – sawing, milling, grinding, deep hole drilling and 5-axis machining. It produces metallic semi-finished products with the highest quality requirements that are used in additive manufacturing, the aerospace industries, plastic injection molding applications, the watch industry, and medical technology.

The plant’s commitment to high quality means that it must continually monitor the machines and react quickly to any change in their statuses. A long-term analysis on the productivity of individual machines previously involved time-consuming logging and evaluations.

These processes were to be digitalized to prepare the company for its leap forward into the era of Industry 4.0. In doing so, the operating times and availabilities of all machines were to be automatically collected, made transparent, and manufacturing processes optimized.