If you’re a company that assembles sheet metal parts, you need maximum precision and efficiency. But what should you do if you’ve exhausted the potential for skilled workers in your local area? One option is to strike out on a new and unconventional path, ideally in the company of an innovative and reliable partner. This is precisely what brought RIKA and ivii together in a bid to come up with a brand-new way to make it easier for employees to assemble modules. The key lies in digitised expertise that is simple to use and integrated into the ivii smartdesk assembly table.
With over 200 staff and a state-of-the-art fleet of machinery, RIKA Blechkomponenten GmbH is one of Austria’s top five companies for the contract manufacturing of sheet metal parts. Based in Micheldorf in Upper Austria, the firm owes its success to the high quality of its products, which its specialists ensure day in, day out through the ultra-precise work they do in its cutting-edge workshops. Like many of its peers, however, RIKA has also been hit hard by the shortage of skilled labour. This prompted it to seek solutions for assembling sheet metal parts using new, often inexperienced staff – without having to spend ages on training but still guaranteeing maximum quality. And this is where the ivii smartdesk comes in.
A smart assembly workstation
The ivii smartdesk is an assembly workstation equipped with the latest digital technology – both for the photo optics, which monitor workpieces from above, and for the image and data processing, which makes use of artificial intelligence (AI). But how can this “intelligent” workstation compensate for new employees’ lack of experience in putting together sheet metal parts? Like this: The ivii smartdesk “receives” the knowledge from an experienced specialist before making it available permanently to the users in order to prevent errors during assembly. No IT technicians or digitalisation experts are required for this “teach-in” process. On the contrary, a new module can be “taught in” in just ten minutes. This is a major benefit, particularly where smaller batches are involved, as RIKA Managing Director Reinhard Trippacher explains: “The challenge that we faced was to ensure verified quality in our assembly operations too, and to do so for all manner of different modules. I’m not talking about the kind of large-scale assembly runs you get in the automotive industry: These are small batches.” ivii’s innovative technology is thus helping the company offer its customers more flexibility, which is one of RIKA’s key success factors. What is more, the fact that the digitised knowledge is so easy to handle makes the company ideally equipped for further growth and for taking on new, as-yet inexperienced staff as required. It will also be well placed to manufacture a new range of products at short notice. “We want to be able to deliver unbeatable quality at all times, regardless of staff turnover and the current state of the job market,” says Reinhard Trippacher.
Welcome support rather than intrusive monitoring
He is particularly concerned that his employees should not see the features of the ivii smartdesk as a form of monitoring but rather as support with their work on the digital assembly table that they can call on at any time. And this support is indeed very extensive: First of all, a check is run – e.g. on a list of parts or materials from SAP – to see whether all the parts required for the module to be manufactured are to hand. During actual assembly, the system uses the knowledge it has previously been “taught” to guide the user through the entire process, with each step being checked for correctness before moving on to the next. As well as guaranteeing high quality, this also takes the pressure off the people performing the tasks. “The direct feedback they get from the ivii smartdesk allows my team to go home at the end of the day safe in the knowledge that they’ve done everything right,” explains Reinhard Trippacher, outlining the benefits of the accompanying quality checks for his employees. “And they don’t need to worry about whether they missed anything.”
Documents and data help fine-tune processes
The recording of all work steps and the ongoing quality checks also generate a significant amount of highly meaningful data for the company “on the side”. This data can then be analysed in order to gain new insights for process optimisation or serve as evidence in the event of a complaint – without taking up any extra time.
The ivii smartdesk thus offers both company management and its employees numerous advantages, which RIKA Managing Director Reinhard Trippacher sums up thus: “The ivii smartdesk gives us an easy way to digitise information and make it accessible. The real-time instructions and continuous quality checks are helping us to make our staff successful, regardless of their qualifications or training. After all, providing our customers with top quality at all times is extremely important to us. Having ivii as our partner enables us to do just that – and more.”
Further information on the ivii smartdesk, the digital, AI-assisted assembly table: https://digital-2-go.com/en/product/ivii-smartdesk.
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