The increasingly faster changing fashion and worldwide competition in the textile industry demand a large degree of flexibility and the shortest delivery times. Therefore, the German textile industry only has a chance of survival, if it consistently stands for quality and at the same time, uses all technical and organisational rationalising possibilities.
One particular company, Georg + Otto Friedrich GmbH & Co. KG, established in 1952, specialised exclusively in the warp-knitting of fabrics. The array of products encompasses the whole breadth of modern warp-knitted textiles and ranges from lining to flag material, technical veloure for reels and grinding disks to all types of coatings.
As well as the internal market, Friedrich attends to customers in almost all European states and companies in the USA, South Africa and Asia. A subsidary company is located in Vienna and a second manufacturing plant in Chemnitz. An important aspect of the idea behind the company is the efficient supplying of customers through entrepots in Groß-Zimmern, Aalen, Mönchengladbach, Bielefeld and Arnheim (NL).
C. 50 staff work every week. This enormously high production is made possible by 70-80 tons of huge spools of yarn (so-called sectional beams) on which up to 1,680 threads with a spool length of 120,000 meters are wound. The quality of our items takes top priority - you are assured of constant inspections and improvements in production and in purchases. Friedrich has modern machines of the newest technology for error control and prevention. Similarly, investments of the past years included the new fully air-conditioned storage and production halls and an integrated EDV system. The site of production of Friedrich GmbH is one of the most modern in the European textile industry - even the quality control is extensively automated.
The Hessian textile processor realised in good time that competitive advantages could only be achieved through the production process itself and the capability of delivering more quickly. However, no thought was given to a shift in production to low-wage countries by Friedrich. One is convinced that, with the right strategy and the support of an integrated PPS/ERP solution, it is possible to remain competitive as a bidder for the niche in the location of Germany.
The conversion to the newest technology already took place in the eighties, which kept production very even with just two stages of manufacture. Today, yarn spools are bought ready-made and the dyeing of the material also takes place externally. The further refinements of the product to the finished material is carried out by reliable partners, with whom Friedrich often already have a business relationship of ten years. Today, Friedrich GmbH distinguishes itself with very fast and flexible production and a delivery time to a maximum of three weeks - the majority of items can be placed at your disposal within 24 hours out of the storage area, some in over 130 colours
Something particular in Friedrich GmbH is the tracing of batches lots of the finished product to the sectional beam and its supplier. The dyeing of the finished warp-knitted materials results in a variation of shade if the raw materials do not stem from the same batch of yarn. 100% colour fidelity can only be guaranteed by the supply of a single batch of yarn. Moreover, it can happen that single threads do not correspond to technical requirements. In order to be able to guarantee the high quality of the product, the exact colour batch must be able to be found again at all times and a detailed tracing to the spool of yarn must be possible.
The tracing of the finished product from the grey cloth until the sectional beam and its supplier - not easy EDP technically or oganisationally anyway - is made more difficult because the individual stages are conducted in different units (finished products in metres, raw materials in kilogramms and spools of yarn per individual piece).
Until 1990, only a graphic computer was used for managing the colour batches and a PC in the administration. The ever faster changing fashion and worldwide competition and the sharply increasing volume of orders led to an overload of the system which was used up until then. Therefore, Friedrich decided to introduce an EDP system which also enabled Friedrich to fulfill the tasks specific to the company.
Lothar Vorbeck, son of the present-day managing director Peter Vorbeck, used a practical research project with the theme "an integrated EDP system in a hosiery factory" to find a suitable software solution. "Not one single standard system could suit our specific batch/lot tracing," he recalls, "except for one: abas-abas Business Software." The solution: Two of the multifaceted tools of abas-ERP - additional databases and free text - made a complete history possible of all products, which were manufactured on a particular machine. Every finished part is traced via colour, item and piece numbers until the sectional beam.
Vorbeck: "abas-ERP disposes of many finished standard modules but is not strictly determined. Instead, it offers already known configurations which suit many tasks and which the user can modify individually. With that, abas-ERP is a software package which adopts the organisation and control of the in-firm operations independent of the sector to which the company belongs and the actual tasks of the company.
Therein, he sees the main strength of the system: It can adapt to the requirements of the individual workplace exactly and insert itself flexibly into the specific particularities of the company and the workplace. A series of tools are available to the user, with whose help he can create individual interfaces from standard interfaces and develop specific programs. Therefore, abas-ERP suits the setup for every user and also includes only the functions which are really needed.
Lothar Vorbeck on deciding on abas-ERP: Since all requirements specific to Friedrich were fulfilled (regarding production planning and direction as well as commercial concerns), and the program can be integrated with relatively low acquisition costs and runs cost-effectively, it was easy to make the decision in the end.
After the decision had been taken, the managing director was designated to spend a month in the software company ABAS Software AG in Karlsruhe and worked with the abas staff on the development of software specific to Friedrich.
The most important at the beginning of the project was the integration of the batch/lot management as developed by Lothar Vorbeck. "The tracing of the finished product from the raw materials to the spool of yarn and its supplier no longer poses a problem for us," declares Vorbeck.
The abas Business Software was introduced into Friedrich GmbH step by step. First of all, it was the administration's turn: the system was gradually upgraded. Today, everything is done by EDP in the administration's technical sphere.
Following that, EDP was introduced into production and stock management. Planning periods - not possible in less than 1-2 weeks before abas-ERP - have now gone down to a few hours. The information on production necessary for general data stock is transferred by suppliers at night. The stock of raw materials worth several hundred thousand DM - which was administered manually before abas-ERP and only allowed exact information on the current stock on the inventory date - is easier to manage now and is constantly at the most recent level. The branch operation in Chemnitz is directly connected via ISDN-Router with the applications in Groß-Zimmern which are run under HP-UX.
At Friedrich GmbH, all staff work with the abas Business Software: An operator guidance was drawn up which is fully attuned to the individual needs of the Friedrich company and makes mistakes on the side of the user almost impossible: Every worker can obtain concrete help through abas-ERP, e.g. for machine conversions, the inspection of downtimes and the status of the hosiery machines.
Lothar Vorbeck draws the balance: "Without abas-EKS, such a growth in our business would not have been possible!"
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