The Maschinenbau Kalfass GmbH & Co. founded in 1949 is a mechanical engineering firm in which 40 employees produce machines for wood-processing. The Black Forest firm realised its breakthrough into the industrial production area with the advent of the first multiple cross-cut saws. Today Kallfass is more a plant and construction firm whose systems extend from automatic firing to automatic graduation. The customers from more than 30 countries are mainly sawmills, parquet and pallet factories as well as planing plants. In the meantime there is a branch operation in Wernigerode in the Harz mountains in which 20 people are employed.
At Kallfass just about nothing is standard. Everything is produced in an order-oriented manner in many variants according to the construction site principle. Numerous parts and modules are manufactured in small series in stock. Up to the end of the 70s the organisation was receiving praise and design was under control at best via rough sketches. At that time the company was still keeping track of things with just ten employees. With increasing growth and more complex products, however, this became more difficult. 'Modern Times' then began with the arrival of the current managing director into the firm - Ernst Kallfass, who bought the first drawing-board. In 1991 it was replaced by a CAD system. This was done with great vision. It was clear even back then that computer-aided design was merely understood as a lead-in into an on-going CAD-PPC-PDC conception.
In 1992 the second step was tackled."This step was somewhat more difficult" reports production manager Hans Haist who coplanned and definitively codecided on the entire EDP project. "It was clear to us that the effects of the new organisational measures would be noticeable for the first time straight away as far as the workshop."
Therefore the new system also had to bring with it some preconditions:
An average data technology system would have been too expensive and too costly. "What we were concerned with was that our people do not find our measures taken with the machines as an additional nuisance. The system should have the ability to be mastered by our employees themselves - EDP lay people without exception - without great need for training." explains Hans Haist.
Managing director Ernst Kallfass also had a clear picture of the new system: "The great strength of companies of our size at Kallfass and in general lies most especially in the flexibility - above all in the very short period of time taken to react to the numerous changes in customer desires. And everything which could limit or endanger this flexibilty, we reject!"
Given these specifications, the decision in favour of the software abas Business Software was finally made.Important to the Black Forest firm in taking this decision,alongside the fact that abas-ERP fulfilled all of its set demands, was above all, the low purchase price and the comparatively reasonable subsequent costs for maintenance and upgrades. "What should be emphasised is the flexible standard user interface which can be (additionally) individually shaped with the help of the easiest, intelligent tools according to the needs and demands of our user in the work-place.", according to Haist. "With this we could fulfil our many 'special requests' ourselves and master the software - without being dependent on some software house or programmer."
For example, data capture is standardised nowadays which has led to a considerably improved level of transparency. For sickness or holiday-related absence, any other employee can take on these tasks at any time without a problem. Faxes can be made directly from this order mask and there are telephone dialing helps in the customer, supplier or employee masks. In doing this even the dialling code is checked and the reasonable discount dialling code respectively is automatically included. The creation of an order which was programmed at Kallfass via the 'Flexible User Interface' takes place via menus.
A further feature is the work order which consists of an integrated "Parts list - schedule of job operations". This accompanies the order as a 'job ticket' through the entire production process and serves as a costs or actual data capture sheet. Haist: "We do produce machines after all and not mountains of paper."
In addition to these time-saving alleviations of work, abas- offers useful support in the area of production. Operations were compiled into three different catalogues of operations typical for particular machines. A maximum of nine different operations only are possible in these catalogues respectively. Which of these three operations catalogues is actually concerned, is already defined in the CAD system and transferred together with the items of the parts lists into abas- where the parts list schedules of job operations are then printed out together with the barcodes for the operations. By means of these barcodes, the actual figures of the orders and the attendance times of the employees can be exactly determined using the time recording system.
These actual figures for orders enables Kallfass to carry out actual costing for the first time which can easily be implemented via the interaction of abas- with the system for recording attendance time. The actual times are simply recorded by barcode and code pen via 'check-in and check-out' of the operations, allocated to the order, automatically cleared of breaks and similar times of absence, valued via hourly rates and then sent back to the abas- system. Since the attendance and absence of the employees is also simultaneously recorded, the productive part of the entire operating time is known - i.e. the part whose orders can be directly allocated.
In this way it is known at Kallfass exactly how much an order has really cost when it leaves the plant, since the introduction of abas.
The multiple stock management introduced in Version 8.5 brought with it great advantages - today it is no longer difficult to manage the stock of the two plants in Klosterreichenbach and Wernigerode the same using one client.
"We regard the EDP success as well as the growth of our company tied in with it as being founded in the combination of the CAD-PPC-PDC systems such that on valuation abas- can be awarded a really decisive role. Today we can deal with considerably more in even better quality with the same number of employees and achieve an extremely low processing time.", production manager Haist says on balance. "Even if we are really 'EDP accomplished' with CAD and word-processing support in administration and production then we have lost nothing with the high adaptability of abas- - on the contrary, rather profited."
Although numerous individual adjustments were carried out in abas- at Kallfass, the upgradability of the system is not impaired. All modifications undertaken remain intact after an upgrade thanks to the layered architecture. Consequently, the decision was taken to employ exactly the same systems and modules in the new branch operation in Wernigerode in the Harz mountains as well as in the main plant in the Black Forest. The two plants are linked via an ISDN router.
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