About Maan
The Maan-group consists of Maan Biobased products (smart biodegradable products for the horticultural industry), Maan Special Products (Ultra-thin seals and foils for the High-tech Industry) and Maan Engineering (Coating equipment for the Building & Construction and label industry).
Assignment
Maan asked VIRO to come up with a solution for outsourcing parts without loss of quality.
The initial idea was simple: give the drawing to the supplier and let them produce it. Unfortunately, this turned out not to be so simple. Although the assembly workers understand exactly what needs to be done with minimal instructions, the information to make high-quality products turned out to be incomplete, resulting in different outputs than required.
From Idea to Challenge
We told the management that we had a solution and were challenged to prove it. VIRO was given the opportunity to demonstrate a defined part of a machine with all the necessary disciplines - mechanical, electrical and software engineering. From this, we created a model with all the information to produce and configure the product. We also prepared IKEA-style assembly instructions.
The project: the Drum Melter
The device we were given was a drum melter, a machine that melts glue as a solid from a drum and pumps it to the machine. Despite being told that this machine was sold in 6 or 8 variants, we discovered more than 73,000 possible configurations. We mapped all stakeholders and gathered their requirements. We then determined the functions of the machine and mapped all variants and options.
From E-bomb to M-bomb
We divided the parts list into an engineering bill of materials (E-bomb) and a manufacturing bill of materials (M-bomb), because engineers need different information from production. We divided the assembly of the drum melter into eight steps, with work instructions for each process step. The input of these work instructions comes from the central model, as do the texts on all labels.
One-to-one relationship between instruction and product
The assembly instruction is generated based on the chosen configuration, so there is always a one-to-one relationship between the instruction and the product being built.
Benefits for Maan:
Want to know more?
Feel free to contact Ernst Stokkelaar on telephone number +31 6 227 785 04 or e-mail: e.stokkelaar@viro-group.com.
