Quality knows no limits: FRÄNKISCHE Industrial Pipes automates pipe production processes with Azure IoT

The challenge: Connected processes for high-quality production and customer collaboration

Roads, buildings, vehicles—the list of places FRÄNKISCHE Industrial Pipes products can be found is virtually endless. The company develops and manufactures pipes and system solutions for rainwater management, e-mobility, and car fuel lines. Its current portfolio comprises some 13,000 products. Each year, FRÄNKISCHE Industrial Pipes processes around 70,000 metric tons of plastic raw materials. The company makes sure that every component it produces meets the relevant standards and stringent quality assurance requirements—so that automotive lines are given sufficient heat protection to prevent them from leaking fuel or wiper fluid, for example. This calls for a high level of integration, connectivity, and transparency across all processes—not only within the company but also for collaboration with customers. In the case of FRÄNKISCHE Industrial Pipes, these include major automotive manufacturers.

“Automated production is on the rise. Given the pace of development that’s required today, having everyone work just for themselves and in silos is simply no longer up to scratch,” says Stefan Endorff, Director Digital Transformation Office at FRÄNKISCHE Industrial Pipes. “Our customers need clearly defined supply chains, and ideally they want to coordinate with us in real time. Connected factories and production processes along the entire value chain are fast becoming the norm in the automotive industry.” In cases of damage or error, for instance, automakers have to be able to quickly and efficiently determine whether they are dealing with a single faulty component or a manufacturing error that taints the entire batch. The only way they can do this is by performing their own ad hoc analysis using data from the supplier.

“Retaining a competitive edge hinges on having suitable digital systems and a high degree of connectivity all along the supply chain,” Endorff says. “So we decided to act like a pioneer: instead of implementing stand-alone solutions, we wanted a high-availability, secure platform with standards each division could apply without any great adjustment.” In addition, the platform ought to connect to the many software solutions FRÄNKISCHE Industrial Pipes has developed in-house for a range of upstream and downstream processes, including product development, cost analysis, and controlling. “System discontinuities should be kept to a minimum to allow employees to continue working in their usual environment as much as possible. That’s what makes Microsoft Azure as a platform-as-a-service the perfect solution,” Endorff explains. “Since all the services build on and dovetail with one another, we didn’t have to establish any redundancy systems. That’s what sold us.”

The solution: From plastic to pipe—Azure IoT unites all data and processes transparently on a single platform

The new platform solution is now being used at six out of FRÄNKISCHE Industrial Pipes’ 19 locations worldwide. The system digitally maps all steps from raw materials procurement to the finished product—including upstream and downstream processes such as sales or development. Data from each point in the product life cycle goes directly from the machine via an edge device to Azure IoT Hub in the cloud. There, it enters Azure Storage and is processed using Azure Data Factory and Azure Functions. It is joined by data on the given machine, batch, and production order from the manufacturing execution system (MES), which extracts its data from the maintenance and ERP systems. Finally, the data packets are stored for further processing.

The result is full transparency and real-time traceability for product life cycles, production processes, and production-related quality assurance processes: as soon as they arrive, raw materials are given a clearly identifiable barcode, their packaging is checked for damage, and their weight, levels of moisture and contamination, and melt flow index are measured. It is now possible to determine which machine, and even which tool and workstation, processed a particular raw material or component. A QR code is either printed or lasered onto individual product components, enabling specific batch and component data to be called up in the platform solution and any systems connected to it. Quality assurance checks are either inline or periodic, and always with end-to-end documentation.

Only when all quality checks produce positive results, the next process begins. The final check uses cameras in conjunction with artificial intelligence (AI) that has been trained with images and enriched with data on location, position, and tolerance. As soon as all checks are completed, customers can open an online portal to view all the process steps and data gathered for each of the components they ordered.

“It never used to be possible to trace a product’s journey back to the specific tool used to make it,” Endorff says. “Since everything is now detected and documented automatically, we can zoom in on individual work steps to resolve any queries or anomalies.”

Using Azure IoT to achieve standardization and connectivity has led to a noticeable increase in quality: thanks to the continuous checks, faulty components are detected and separated out sooner. Looking ahead, this will result in new analysis options in the direction of predictive maintenance: should a component display an elevated error rate, the IoT platform can warn of a potential breakdown before it happens.

What’s more, the new global standard makes life considerably easier for the specialist departments, as they now have solid data on which to base decisions relating to product development and process optimization. They no longer have to manually collate data spread across a variety of systems. FRÄNKISCHE Industrial Pipes’ IT team also benefits from the IoT platform. “Today, we have the flexibility to reserve additional capacity or have the solution scale up or down automatically. In the past, that meant buying additional hardware,” says Sabrina Pollner, Project Manager Digital Transformation Office at FRÄNKISCHE Industrial Pipes. “Azure’s platform-as-a-service approach eliminates our need for additional administrative resources. That’s a huge advantage, especially when it comes to IT security—Azure delivers exactly the support we need in this highly dynamic field.”

A real game changer for the project was the rollout of Azure DevOps. Whereas before, each separate machine had its own individual operator, there are now some 300 machines worldwide running online at almost full automation—and in the future, that number ought to reach several thousand. “DevOps supports transparent communication around the clock for everyone involved. Project data can be written into each line of code and programming links can be built into project administration,” Pollner says. “The system allows us to kick off developments, secure approvals, and perform updates on any machine worldwide—all without a single site visit.”

Endorff and Pollner have no doubt that automation, connectivity, and support through state-of-the-art technologies will continue to feature more and more in automotive production. FRÄNKISCHE Industrial Pipes already runs several cloud-native quality assurance checks. In the future, the company plans to expand data-driven value creation with a view to further enhancing the detection of production errors, implementing predictive maintenance for machines, and raising quality standards even more.