POLYTEC PASSION CREATES INNOVATION

THE DIGITALIZATION ROADMAP OF THE POLYTEC GROUP

STANDARDISE, CONNECT, ACCELERATE

In 2015 the POLYTEC GROUP launched ONE POLYTEC, a strategic initiative to promote group-wide collaboration and put the group’s enormous technological complexity to use for an improved ­market development. A broad-based digitalisation offensive provides the technical and operational basis to achieve this. Nearly all ­company processes are initially simplified and standardised; ­subsequently digital solutions are used to enable central control of these processes. In 2021, POLYTEC achieved important milestones on its digitalisation roadmap.
 

Standardising work at 20 locations all over the world while at the same time managing and advancing an enormous range of technologies and product diversity and deriving new solutions for a changing market – these are currently the main challenges the ­POLYTEC GROUP is facing. To overcome these challenges, the group is working on reshaping its system landscape.


Technological diversity as a ­competitive advantage

The background of this necessity is explained by a side effect of the growth which the POLYTEC GROUP has experienced in the course of its company history. Over the past decades, the integration of plants focusing on different areas resulted in an enormous range of technologies, which POLYTEC aims to utilise for the development of new application areas for its products and of new market segments. However, this diversity also entails a high level of complexity, which must remain manageable and controllable. To this end, the company implemented a central organisation over the past years, which ensures that teams can be coordinated and work together optimally across locations.


New opportunities through digital efficiency

One of the challenges of a central form of organisation is to provide relevant information rapidly and in reliable quality, allowing for a faster, more efficient and more informed decision-making process at all corporate levels. This initially required the simplification and standardisation of a number of processes throughout the entire POLYTEC GROUP, which can now gradually be centrally controlled and coordinated using smart software solutions.

This leads to three key advantages: firstly, more efficient processes improve overall efficiency, which is reflected in lower administrative and production costs and consequently increases competitiveness. Secondly, “digital efficiency” facilitates the development of innovative product solutions beyond all boundaries of locations and technologies. And thirdly, rapid and informed decisions based on high speed and quality of information are a decisive competitive advantage, especially in times of economic volatility.

Of course these three factors play a very special role in a market environment that is currently undergoing a profound transformation – a transformation POLYTEC intends to use to its advantage: based on innovative power, technological diversity and agility, the company aims to increase its existing market share and open up completely new market segments with intelligent plastic solutions.

In parallel with the ongoing digitalisation initiative, a new concept for market development was introduced in early 2020: the POLYTEC SOLUTION FORCE, through which the POLYTEC GROUP uses all of its expertise for the development and realisation of new product ideas. The digitalisation projects implemented so far were also a prerequisite in this area. Read more about the POLYTEC SOLUTION FORCE here​​​​​​​.
 

FASTER, LEANER, MORE TRANSPARENT

Three long-term goals have set the direction of the digitalisation roadmap of the POLYTEC GROUP since 2016.

Information is to be provided effi­ciently and in a more user- and ­as­sign­ment-oriented form.

Information of relevance is to be made available in real time or at the press of a button, in order to increase the speed of reaction in the case of ­deviations. This facilitates the rapid recognition of the need for action and a prompt and correct response without the need for a lengthy analytical phase.

Standard tasks are also to be ­largely automated even outside the value-­added process.

Progress along a complex path

The implementation of digital applications to connect and control different company segments and locations is a highly complex task, which is organised in ten streams at POLYTEC. After COVID-19 had caused interruptions, the digitalisation streams took some major steps forward in the past financial year.

Even though POLYTEC has not yet reached the end of its digitalisation roadmap, the group is more digital – and therefore also more agile and flexible – today thanks to the measures taken. Most importantly, it has already strengthened its position in a transformative market in the long term.
 

 

MILESTONES IN 2021

S4//MES: cooperation optimised

As part of the S4//MES project, a team of roughly 60 persons works on implementing a system which is used to standardise processes at different locations of the POLYTEC GROUP. In this way, an employee in Lohne can take over the monitoring and control of a process in Wolmirstedt without any problem – and vice versa. Short-term staff shortages can thus be rapidly compensated for and problems can be solved together.

But S4//MES also includes other features: the display of real-time information on consumption and the current planning situation, better reporting based on comprehensive data and much more. Overall, the system is intended to free up employees to focus on more qualified tasks.

Finally, this stream also includes the large-scale collection of process data far beyond the usual level, enabling in-depth analyses, for example regarding the correlation of different process parameters. In technical terms, this not least provides the basis for future applications of artificial intelligence. 

In June 2022, S4//MES will go live at the POLYTEC locations in Lohne, ­Wolmirstedt and Thannhausen. It is already operating at the Ebensee plant, and further locations will follow in the coming years.
 

Business Intelligence: productivity at the touch of a button

The Business Intelligence stream is all about transparency, data quality and speed as well. Two software applications are used to increase the quality of information relevant for decision-making and its transmission speed without any additional effort. As a result, required action can be identified early and taken swiftly where necessary. This is possible thanks to automated reports in real time and interactive dashboards which enable employees to retrieve the very latest information at any time. 

All of this benefits several business ­areas: employees in sales and purchasing, for example, can generate reports and analyses at the touch of a button. Production employees receive operational key indicators on productivity, wastage or disruptions in real time, and the management can have reports on relevant key indicators generated without any manual effort.

The project was launched in August 2021. Key modules are scheduled to be rolled out gradually throughout the group or individual pilot plants by the summer of 2022.

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Collaboration: information ­optimally shared

Collaboration is one of the most important streams in POLYTEC’s digitalisation roadmap. It is the technical foundation for the central organisation based on the collaboration of working teams across locations. The strength of this concept was already unexpectedly demonstrated in 2020: the standardised infrastructure enabled ­POLYTEC to switch to working from home within only one day throughout the group. Its functionality is continuously improved as required.
 

HR: Uniform standards facilitate processes

At the end of 2019, the HR teams of the POLYTEC GROUP started a group-wide project to standardise and improve HR processes. The project has already been implemented to a large extent in Austria, Germany and the Netherlands. Today, time management, travel applications, further training and many other things are organised in a standardised manner and – most importantly – digitally.

To begin with, eight old systems had to be replaced and all processes and documents in the HR departments had to be harmonised. Despite pandemic-related obstacles, a large part of the project was completed in late 2021 as planned. Now the standardised HR systems will be developed further and rolled out to the entire POLYTEC GROUP in the long term.
 

PEP project portal: more transparency in project management

In May 2021, a completely new digital tool for Project Managers, Key Account Managers, Product Line Administrators and several other specialist areas of the POLYTEC GROUP went live: the PEP project portal is a platform on which customer projects are processed from acquisition to the transition to series production. All project data can be retrieved by any project member independent of time and location.

In the development of the system, workflows, responsibilities, documents and their archiving were standardised and largely digitised. This created unparalleled transparency along the entire process. Rather than using costly specialised software, the PEP project portal was technically implemented on the basis of standard software. As a result, portal solutions can also be easily and quickly implemented for other processes in the future.


Focus on roll-out capability

Overall, great importance was attached to the roll-out capability of the individual applications rather than fast implementation of individual lighthouse projects throughout the digitalisation roadmap of the POLYTEC GROUP. A close coordination process across the entire group was required in advance to achieve this. Teams across all technical departments defined specific requirements and the necessary standardisation measures for individual processes, thus laying an excellent foundation for the ongoing implementation over the past years.

From a technical perspective, POLYTEC aims to optimise through a minimal number of highly flexible platforms. In doing so, the company intends to remain largely independent of expensive special software and use the high skill level within the group for adaptations of the systems employed.

Once again, the POLYTEC team has shown outstanding performance and commitment during the implementation of the digitalisation roadmap.