Success Story: GANTTPLAN Revolutionizes Toolmaking at Johannes Lübbering GmbH

APS in Interaction With ERP and Workshop Management

At Johannes Lübbering GmbH, the APS (Advanced Planning and Scheduling) system GANTTPLAN integrates seamlessly with the ERP system “APplus” and its workshop control system. Together, GANTTPLAN and APplus create an ideal synergy in toolmaking, resulting in reduced setup, production, and delivery times. This integration enhances reliability, transparency, and efficiency, leading to high customer satisfaction as a crucial competitive advantage.

Key Highlights

Inititual Situation:

• Challenges with transparency in planning/scheduling and in managing capacity bottlenecks.
• Delivery delays despite overtime, excessive setup times, high personnel and material costs, and inefficient machine utilization.

Special Features:

• Creation of a pre-sales model with live data from approximately 12,000 orders.
• Seamless integration of GANTTPLAN into the existing ERP system and workshop control system via SQL interfaces.
• Extensive machinery and above-average vertical integration with often small lot sizes.
• Process optimization through planning of CAD/CAM programming.

Benefits:

• Planning and control of 110 machines and approximately 10,000 orders per working week.
• Reduction of throughput time by 50 to 80 percent.
• Sustainable optimization of production sequence, machine utilization, and setup times.
• Greater transparency and planning reliability throughout the entire order processing chain.
• Cost optimization through an integrated employee scheduling module.

Lübbering – High-Precision Toolmaking ‘Made in Germany’

Johannes Lübbering GmbH is a globally active, innovative family business. Based in Herzebrock-Clarholz in East Westphalia, it develops and produces customised high-precision tools for screwdriving and drilling technology for well-known manufacturers in the automotive and aviation industries. With currently around 220 employees, the company can now look back on over 80 years of history.

Initial Situation in 2011: Lack of Satisfaction and Planning Transparency

Due to the extensive machinery and an above-average vertical range of manufacture exceeding 90%, combined with small lot sizes (fewer than 10 pieces) and the resulting high level of planning and scheduling complexity, the decision was made in 2012 to introduce a production control center. Without an ingenious planning solution, the situation had deteriorated in the preceding months: numerous orders from different toolmaking business areas, lack of transparency, capacity bottlenecks, delays despite overtime hours, weak set-up management, elevated personnel and material costs, and inefficient machine utilization. This was the status quo at the time – a thoroughly critical competitive situation, even though the Lübbering Group had already established a pleasingly stable market position thanks to patented in-house developments and a clever corporate policy.

Convincing Planning Performance: Decision in Favour of GANTTPLAN

The decision to introduce an APS system was followed by a structured selection process. Several arguments favored the GANTTPLAN APS solution from DUALIS: its control station can be easily and closely integrated into the ERP system via SQL interfaces, allowing for the management of large data volumes without issues. Additionally, GANTTPLAN excelled in scheduling for limited capacities, displaying order networks, and offering flexible planning for machines, personnel, and tools. Existing optimization parameters for setup optimization and the overall price-performance ratio further supported the choice of GANTTPLAN.

Oliver Nienaber, Head of Processing Planning at Johannes Lübbering GmbH, states: “Only DUALIS was able to create a pre-sales model from our live data of around 12,000 orders to prove functional suitability – and that in just a few days. Moreover, the chemistry was just right.”

Big Plus: Integration Into ERP System

GANTTPLAN could be perfectly integrated into the APplus ERP system from Asseco, already in use at Lübbering in 2012. The production control center was placed between the ERP system and the workshop control system, also provided by Asseco. This setup ensures that master and transaction data remain in the ERP system, while GANTTPLAN handles detailed planning and optimization. The ERP system continues to play the leading role, preventing data redundancies and simplifying maintenance efforts.

Pre-scheduled production orders from APplus are typically transferred to the GANTTPLAN system once a day via the SQL interface. Here, they are optimized using the automatic planning function according to available capacities and defined target criteria. After the planning run, the APS transfers the finely scheduled work processes, allocated to approximately 185 resources, back to the ERP system. Subsequently, all order information reaches the production employees via the workshop control system.

Rapid Success: Scepticism Gave Way to Enthusiasm

The implementation of GANTTPLAN to control 110 machines took around six to seven months in 2012. “It took us the longest to prepare our master data and parts lists,” says Oliver Nienaber. Today, Lübbering processes around 10,000 orders per working week. In this respect, there is theoretically no upper limit with GANTTPLAN. Oliver Nienaber explains: “Initially, there were concerns about introducing an APS. However, this quickly changed. Each of us still experiences the concrete benefits ourselves every day.”

10 Years of APS Use: Diverse Process Optimisations and Smart Employee Scheduling

After the introduction of GANTTPLAN, Lübbering restructured its pre-production activities, considering various planning parameters. This resulted in complete transparency throughout the entire order processing chain. Workers now have a constant overview of their orders and the overall context via workshop terminals. For over 10 years, GANTTPLAN has been automatically calculating efficient production sequences and transferring the optimized production plans directly to the control system. This increased transparency allows for minimized setup times through bundling.

In the following years, additional tools such as supplementary tool management software were introduced, reducing throughput times by 50 to 80 percent compared to the pre-APS situation. Over time, Lübbering utilized more GANTTPLAN functions. For instance, the personnel planning module for employee scheduling has been fully integrated into the planning system, enabling foremen to see which order is to be processed on which machine at any given time.

Moreover, the introduction of “production resources” (tools, devices, test equipment, etc.) as a planning-relevant optimization in GANTTPLAN brought many advantages. Additionally, scheduling CAD/CAM programming as an operation upstream of cutting production was another significant step towards process optimization.

Effect: Goals Achieved

Today, those responsible for planning and scheduling use GANTTPLAN to oversee and control the entire order processing. This ensures planning stability and smoother production and assembly from an internal perspective, while enhancing customer satisfaction externally. “Many orders are good. Even more orders are better. But the best scenario is when you can process all orders reliably and swiftly, ensuring customer satisfaction,” summarizes Tobias Tönnies, Managing Director of Johannes Lübbering GmbH.

Outlook: Automation in the Milling Area and 24/7 Assembly

The next step involves using GANTTPLAN to progressively automate the milling area in toolmaking and plan the associated tools and clamping devices accordingly. The goal is to load the machining centers 24/7 and keep them running optimally. At the same time, the digital provision of information for the production processes will be further optimized.

[This article was originally published in 2012 and was updated in May 2024]