Production and Logistics

Production and Logistics

Developed once, used many times

Production and Logistics area announces the winner of the first year of the competition 

n the spirit of Strategy 2025, ŠKODA AUTO has long focused on the digital transformation of its products and processes. Digitisation and automation affect the company’s increasing number of operations and activities. The growing number of projects has led to the Best Digital Copy Award competition, which aims to motivate employees to use proven digitisation technologies and system solutions to, among others, prevent any development duplication. Using the existing and functional innovations frees up the carmaker’s IT capabilities and contributes to the dynamic acceleration of the production digitisation process. It also helps to cope with the pressure resulting from the increasingly stringent demands to reduce costs. The very first year of the competition showed how much the ​​Production and Logistics area is influenced by digitisation. In 15 weeks following its official introduction in the carmaker’s internal media, the organisers received 22 applications. Fifteen projects were shortlisted by preferences of the heads of the Production department. After the “detective” work of the organisers, who verified the team of authors and copiers for each of them, 11 solutions were entered in the final round, which the representatives of the copying teams presented to the expert jury on 17 February. During their five-minute online presentation, they explained the purpose and benefits of their project, focusing also on the original solution and benefits that the copy will bring to the carmaker. After the presentation of all 11 projects, the jury (made up of representatives of the SFIT Steering Committee for Production and Logistics) voted online under the leadership of an InnoTeam member for the P area. Almost all the teams of authors and copiers were representatives of various professional areas of Production and Logistics and ŠKODA IT, which confirmed their close inter-field cooperation. The trophies and prizes were presented to the winners virtually on 12 March by Michael Oeljeklaus, Board Member for Production and Logistics. Members of the originator and copy teams of the winning project received iPads, the award for the second place was iPhones, and the authors and copiers who placed third will drive in their rented ENYAQ iV electric car for a month. ED

Condition monitoring

The winning project consisted of two parts. The one is Thingworx, the basic platform used for the online monitoring of the technical condition of production machinery and equipment. In the past, it was used by the pressing shop, which expanded its extensive data collection to increase the usability of its machinery and equipment. The other part is a digital project copy for the PKM – Engine EA 211 department, which they use on their engine block production line. There, the new system monitors the machinery’s real-time condition, which it then evaluates. When any set limits are exceeded, it automatically enters its order into the AMU (Aplikace mobilní údržby – Mobile maintenance application) system. The equipment is then inspected by the maintenance personnel, which reduces any undesirable production downtime. The system visualisation also includes an alarm database, which helps with retrospective failure analysis. During the collection of production data, the current status of all the machinery is displayed via a clear layout of the entire line. In this way, the foreman can react more quickly to any potential issues and possibly re-organise the production flow. The system can display every machine in detail with its production profile, number of produced parts and cycle control.