Referenzkunde | GETRAG FORD Transmissions GmbH

Client Reference | FORD Transmissions GmbH

(formerly GERTRAG FORD transmissions GmbH)

No trace of sand in the transmission

GETRAG FORD Transmissions GmbH achieved significant time and cost savings in maintenance and spare parts management with the GS-Service operations management system.

The automotive world of today signals one thing above all: top speed. Change and growth continue unabated in the industry. The fuel for this rapid development is primarily global competition. Only those who maintain premium quality and technological leadership with high productivity and stringent cost reduction can sustainably secure global competitiveness. For this reason, GETRAG FORD Transmissions GmbH has been relying on the GS-Service operations management system from GreenGate AG at its headquarters in Cologne since 2007. Strategic maintenance management with GS-Service has in the meantime completely replaced purely reactive or even failure-oriented maintenance and is thus pushing the pace along the entire value chain. What's more: in addition to maintenance controlling, GETRAG FORD Transmissions also handles spare parts management via GS-Service. Stocks have already been reduced by 30 percent.

„What good is the best system if it is complicated to operate and therefore not used? After all, maintenance staff doesn't want to waste time in front of the PC."
Ferdinand Pick, System Coordinator Maintenance FORD GETRAG Transmissions GmbH, Cologne plant

In demand: transparent, economical maintenance processes

Every company owns critical equipment – For example this has a direct and significant influence on the performance and profitability of production and distribution. Therefore the ultimate goal is high machine availability with a low total cost of ownership. Consequently, the transmission manufacturer GETRAG FORD Transmissions GmbH, Cologne, which has 188 employees in maintenance alone, i.e. almost 15 percent of the entire staff, commissioned a management consultancy in 2005 to analyse its maintenance. Until then, there were neither key figures nor other reference points available for preventive maintenance with transparent, economic operating procedures.

GS-Service records 3,600 machine units

The optimisation concept, which lead to success in five steps, was ready after six months. The experts identified the implementation of maintenance software as the neuralgic point and then scanned the market. A study was used by the Fraunhofer Institute on maintenance software in terms of costs and service. GreenGate AG was awarded the contract due to the convincing efficiency of its GS-Service operations management system in terms of price and performance. In February 2007, the first pilot project was launched, in which a cost centre - including around 150 machine units - was managed completely via GS-Service.

In April 2007, the second pilot project was added with the integration of 300 additional machine units. On 1 May 2007, GETRAG FORD Transmissions switched completely to the GreenGate solution. "Since then, the maintenance data of all 3,600 machine units have been recorded, documented and processed via GS-Service," explains Hans-Günther Hensengerth, Head of Maintenance at GETRAG FORD Transmissions GmbH, Cologne plant.

GS-Service: interface competence instead of incompatibility

As a subordinate system to the ERP, GS-Service integrates planning, documentation and monitoring functions including business applications into an information and management system. The object-oriented software - designed as a scalable client/server solution - is based on standard technology and works under current Microsoft operating systems. The advantage of this is that GS-Service can be connected to other systems (GIS, ERP) thanks to its open system architecture. The use of mobile devices or a "digital pen" for order processing is also easily possible.

Training time: 15 minutes to the first entry

At GETRAG FORD Transmissions, all employees involved have access to GS-Service, as everyone has to enter their orders and entries themselves. Hans-Günther Hensengerth: "The fact that the maintenance staff understood within 15 minutes during the introduction how to operate the software and write orders is due to the fact that the entire maintenance system runs under a familiar Windows interface." The storage of photos is also simple and unproblematic. Ferdinand Pick, system coordinator for maintenance at FORD GETRAG Transmissions GmbH, Cologne plant: "What use is the best system if it is complicated to operate and therefore not used? After all, maintenance staff doesn't want to waste time in front of their PCs.

GS-Service is more than just a digital plant chronicle. Now established as an electronic inspection book, audited accordingly and approved by Ford, the individual machine findings stored as a document / report are the basis for proactive maintenance. GS-Service reports when and to what extent certain deadlines / work / processes must be adhered to or completed. However, the system offers the user more than simply calculating over time when, for example, a certain machine part needs to be serviced. GS-Service generates reports that are used at different time intervals. For example, in all weekly meetings the MTTR (Mean Time To Repair) report forms the basis of discussion. Hans-Günther Hensengerth explains: "All production areas can compare their own machines internally and the machines of other segments externally. Together with the MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) report, these are the most important key figures for the department, which are discussed in detail in our weekly meetings with the production managers."

This creates win-win situations for all involved. After all, preventive maintenance benefits greatly from knowledge about operation and maintenance, including past incidents. Based on the consistent documentation in GS-Service, GETRAG FORD Transmissions can also check whether plant availability has improved. Depending on the perspective and the question, the system provides meaningful evaluations for individual plants and machines that cause more or less costs, sometimes also for different, individual production processes. The documentation, which led to the creation of a maintenance brochure in 2009 as a benchmark for other plants in the company, continues to be used as a sound basis for decision-making. Hans-Günther Hensengerth: "Be it for internal departmental measures to improve the workflow or for upcoming investments - as proof of their necessity - in dialogue with the plant manager and the controlling department".

What GETRAG FORD Transmissions found positive from the start later proved to be a stroke of luck: the extreme flexibility and expandability of GS-Service.
"In our search for a compatible system for spare parts management, we asked GreenGate whether GS-Service could be expanded accordingly," explains Hans-Günther Hensengerth. In fact, GETRAG FORD Transmissions was able to implement the spare parts management in GS-Service, including perfect documentation of the newly built, central main warehouse with mapping of all spare parts with storage location, photos and stock. Ferdinand Pick adds: "Top values in delivery, quantity reliability and service are components relevant to success, as is the availability of critical machines."

Considerable cost savings

The need for optimised spare parts management was obvious. Travel and waiting times were simply too high - this is called "non-value-adding activities". Aspects such as multiple storage due to incorrect knowledge or the procurement of spare parts as an emergency measure, which was not necessary in principle, also proved to be uneconomical in the run-up, as many existing spare parts could not be found. Hans-Günther Hensengerth: "We also detected the fact that there were many confusing storage locations with unknown parts, which on top of that were not known to every employee, as an untenable situation." Since the total inventory was recorded in GS-Service, longer repair times, machine and production downtimes due to time-consuming spare parts searches are a thing of the past. Furthermore: Thanks to the recording in GS-Service, the stock levels could be reduced by 30 percent through volume adjustment, which corresponds to a one-time cost reduction in the six-digit euro range.

Integration of further plants from 2012

What works well in Cologne will also be implemented in the company's other plants: In Bordeaux, the large GS service package for maintenance and spare parts management should be up and running by 1 April 2012, in Halewood in 2013. "Then," says Hans-Günther Hensengerth, "harmonization across all plants will be in place, overall spare parts management will be possible or even max-min control across all plants: we're talking about no less than eight million spare parts here, four million in Cologne and the same number again in Halewood and Bordeaux."

Mobile on-sie solution with personal digital assistant

As dynamically as GETRAG FORD Transmissions reacts to changes in the market in terms of products and solutions, GS-Service is designed to be flexible and is constantly adapted to new in-house requirements. Ferdinand Pick: " Although the exchange with GreenGate was more intensive in the introductory and pilot phase with weekly meetings which have now been reduced to half-yearly meetings, we can still speak of a very close dialogue. We are currently working together on the possibilities of mobile solutions with a PDA. " Hans-Günther Hensengerth: "Using a PDA, all the documentation and reports that are needed would be available on site at the machines." Interactivity included: "Ideally, a machine would give us information about a problem or an upcoming event on its own - via SMS to the PDA of the responsible employees. That is our goal."