Knauf Interfer SE made a strategic decision in favor of the IIoT platform toii® for its steel service centers.

The Challenge

As one of the leading mill-independent service providers, processors and distributors of materials in Europe, Knauf Interfer SE focuses on the processing of steel and aluminum. With 1,400 employees at a total of 12 locations in Europe, mainly in Germany, Knauf Interfer SE secures the supply chain of its customers from global sourcing to local delivery.

The aim of a strategic realignment in 2018 was, among other things, to increase the availability and efficiency of its own production plants. The prerequisite for this is to obtain transparency about what is happening in the systems and machines at the six production plants in Germany.

As part of the measures taken to digitize and automate production, a solution was to be found that would precisely evaluate the machine data with as little technical effort as possible and thus help to bring the desired transparency to production. At the same time, a solution was to be found that could be flexibly integrated into the existing ERP system.

The Solution

The IIoT platform toii® forms the basis for the digitalization of the shop floor and production automation at Knauf Interfer.

The decisive factor for the implementation of toii® was the numerous use cases of the platform, which Knauf Interfer was also able to observe at its own locations. This also resulted in a correspondingly high speed in the implementation of the digitalization solution.

The joint project between Knauf Interfer and thyssenkrupp Material IoT started in October 2021. Initially, toii® was implemented in the two largest steel service centers, the Delta Stahl plant in Barsinghausen and the Walter Patz plant in Mudersbach. Two further plants in Nürtingen and Duisburg and other locations were added.

The machine data recorded with toii® made it possible to analyze the production data and thus create production transparency. In the area of production planning, the work of the machine operators has been made significantly easier, as the precise data provided in real time offers a better basis for decision-making.