INTEGRA Biosciences AG, a leading provider of high-quality laboratory instruments and consumables for liquid handling and media preparation, faced precisely these challenges and opted for the ELAM system solution from Bossard for precise digitization and networking of assembly.
New challenges for a fast-growing company
Dominik Müller, Production Engineer at INTEGRA Biosciences AG, explains the increased requirements due to expansion:
"With the steady growth of our company and the increasing number of employees in production, we faced the challenge of balancing the skill level of new employees and facilitating their training without compromising the high quality level of our products."
When training new employees for the various assembly stations, the use of manual assembly instructions in particular proved to be a time and safety waster.
"Previously, intensive training and paper documents had supported our processes, but in order to increase process reliability and improve employee rotation, we were looking for a more effective solution."
And this is where Bossard came into play
The ELAM 5 system from Bossard was ultimately selected after a comprehensive review of various systems. This platform enables precise digitization and networking of assembly. ELAM integrates the performance of networked devices, real-time data acquisition, traceability of every step, maximum flexibility, and customized adaptations. The digitalization of assembly steps drastically reduces the training required for personnel and facilitates rotation between different assembly tasks. Assembly errors are practically reduced to zero. Additionally, all important data for well-founded decisions can be accessed in the network at any time.
Dominik Müller:
"The decision to use Bossard's Smart Factory Assembly solution was based on thorough comparisons with other assembly production systems. The outstanding features that were decisive in the selection include the flowchart function and flowchart builder, measurement and test value acquisition as well as user-defined group assignment to enable efficient adaptation to production processes."
Christoph Sidler, Project Manager Smart Factory Assembly at Bossard, comments on the project:
"The collaboration with INTEGRA Biosciences AG was and is very interesting, as we analyze and discuss their specific requirements together and try to map this digitally as much as possible with our standards. The focus is not so much on the product, but on the scalable process."High quality, digital assembly instructions, production data in a central system The use of ELAM has enabled assembly instructions to be digitized and simplified, which also makes it easier to update them. All relevant production data is now recorded in a central system, eliminating the need to maintain and archive additional Excel or Word documents.
"Although the main goal was not to reduce throughput times and increase output, many manual steps have been eliminated, resulting in noticeable time savings and making it easier to analyze the data." Dominik Müller, Production Engineer at INTEGRA Biosciences AG
Conclusion: Minimizing the number of documents enhances process reliability
"Through the implementation of the ELAM 5 system, we were able to significantly enhance process reliability by digitally guiding employees through the assembly process and simultaneously reducing the volume of documents. This allows employees to focus more on their core tasks, ultimately resulting in more efficient and higher-quality production," summarizes Dominik Müller.
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