Industry 4.0 @Steinbeis Papier

22.09.2020 - Steinbeis Papier operates one of the most modern recycled paper mills in Europe. The company can look back on more than 40 years of experience in ecologically integrated paper production - a success story based on a constant spirit of innovation. The latest Industry 4.0 project emphasises the commitment of the European market leader.

The fundamental task of a company like Steinbeis Papier is to manufacture competitive products to the highest ecologically sustainable standards. This is achieved above all with highly efficient production processes. To ensure this, Steinbeis Papier has switched to Industry 4.0. The recycled paper manufacturer is continuously focusing on the digitalisation of the company. Another step in this direction was the integration of an SAP HANA system into production. "We have long established a highly automated process in production. Countless data was recorded and written. Then the idea matured to make more out of this data, to create greater benefits. This is where the collaboration between Steinbeis Papier, avato consulting AG and SAP with its HANA database technology comes into play," says Dr Michael Hunold, who has been responsible for integrating new systems and processes at Steinbeis Papier for four years.

Cooperation for more efficiency

Steinbeis Papier operates one of the most modern ecologically integrated recycled paper mills in Europe. Every year, the company produces more than 300,000 tonnes of copy, magazine and digital printing paper from 100 percent recycled paper. The success of the European market leader is the result of continuous optimisation of production processes. The digital transformation that Steinbeis has undergone also contributes to this. Dr Michael Hunold has acted as coordinator between external partners and internal departments: "Three and a half years ago, we started to spread digitalisation across the entire company. We were then able to realise the Industry 4.0 @Steinbeis Papier project with avato consulting and SAP."

Initialisation of the digitalisation project

Together with avato, ideas from the company were first translated into use cases in order to find out what a new system needed to bring to the table. Dr Michael Hunold remembers the initialisation phase: "We conducted interviews with colleagues from a wide range of work areas. As an example, we wanted to solve questions that came from production, but also from purchasing and controlling. It was important to see what a changeover would mean in terms of quality and costs."

Implementation of SAP HANA

After a year, avato consulting AG was able to deliver a data platform customised for Steinbeis Papier based on SAP HANA and its own components. "We first had to create the technological prerequisites and transfer our diverse data to the database. But for the past two years, we have been continuously working on all applications. We take a close look at all the challenges in our day-to-day work and consider whether we can solve them with the new analysis options," says Dr Michael Hunold. Thanks to the implementation, data from 25,000 sensors in production can now be delivered every second, stored and analysed in real time in conjunction with data from MES and ERP on the new SAP HANA platform.

New possibilities with SAP HANA

Industry 4.0 is part of an evolution and the logical development of what Steinbeis Papier has achieved to date. "Our production has been highly automated for many years and produces a lot of data. We now also have these data records written to SAP HANA. This opens up completely different possibilities for analysis. Especially in production, cycles between deviation and correction can be shortened by analysing data more quickly." Initial scepticism among Steinbeis Papier employees was also quickly dispelled - the system is an effective tool designed to support the work process. It analyses and compiles data in the background so that the employee can intervene more quickly to make adjustments.

Dr Michael Hunold sums up: "At Steinbeis Papier, we focused on waste paper and therefore on sustainability in production at an early stage and developed corresponding processes. We continue to work on constantly improving ourselves - one means is optimised data analysis, use of data and rapid provision." Other areas of the company, such as Purchasing and Controlling, are also to be more closely integrated into the system in future.

The project was honoured with the SAP Quality Award by Steinbeis Papier at the beginning of 2020. In a film by SAP, the innovative power of the project is underlined once again with statements by CEO Ulrich Feuersinger and Head of New Processes Dr Michael Hunold as well as impressions from the company: