Faster project completion with the SAP MII (SAP Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence) Rapid Deployment Solution

At its Wintershall and Zielitz sites, K+S KALI GmbH manufactures products that are filled by bagging or Big Bag plant. Applicator equipment attaches an order-specific label to each bag. The same process is used by a service provider in Bebra.

K+S KALI decided it needed to take action to overcome the restrictions of the non-upgradeable silo solutions previously deployed. Time and again, the multitude of systems and interfaces deployed resulted in problems with data consistency across the various systems. For the vertical integration of the  bagging plant with SAP ERP, K+S KALI decided to use SAP Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence (SAP MII). Thanks to the RDS solution from IGZ, all of the lines can now access information about ongoing orders on an ad hoc basis. Line managers start the orders in the integrated control station: this results in the lines being automatically supplied with order-specific process parameters. Order workflows and performance metrics are calculated and displayed  online. SAP MII (SAP Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence) reports quantities back to the ERP system in real time. While the layout of bag labels was previously created by hand, SAP MII (SAP Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence) now forms the basis for integrated  workflows. Just-in-time for the order, customer-specific label layouts are supplemented with current process information and master data, and communicated to the labelling systems.

The lines use a TCP/IP link from the labelling systems to report the machine states and quantities directly to SAP MII (SAP Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence). The system also supports the printing of production and shipping labels on specialised lines. The overall system for manufacturing the products (ultra-pure salts) is deployed  in an environment where validation is mandatory. "With SAP MII (SAP Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence), shop floor and ERP become tightly integrated, giving us a new standard of quality for processes and data," explains Andreas Walczyk, Head of Factory Applications at K+S IT Services. This enables the company to respond more quickly to specialised requests from its customers. Together with specialised SAP Manufacturing partner IGZ, production integration is currently being further expanded with the help of IGZ RDS to handle additional task areas within the Group.