Machinery and plant engineering

Publication: OPPORTUNITY - Facts for decision makers

In this OPPORTUNITY we take a look at machinery and plant engineering and discuss how companies in this sector can position themselves future-proof and systematically expand their business. Various approaches to expanding the business will be presented, based on the product-market portfolio. Here, the focus lies on operational excellence, activities regarding a market approach and innovation that concentrates on customers.

Under the keyword operational excellence, the possibilities for increasing efficiency as to aquisition and execution of projects are illustrated. In doing so, the modularization of machines and systems will be discussed among other things. In the context of approaching the market, we focus on data-based market development, the importance of which is also growing in machinery and plant engineering. The chapter “Innovation concentrating on customers” explains how machine and plant manufacturers can generate more bussiness with additional services and digital products. Finally, we present ten patterns for success that we have derived from the different positionings of companies with above-average success.

Contents of this OPPORTUNITY

positioning by the range of services
positioning in markets
approaches to expanding business
10 patterns of success in machinery and plant engineering

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Successful collaboration

“This project was important for our profitability. We were able to maintain our day-to-day business and complete the project at the same time – and my team kept their spirits up. The profitability of my business area for components has been increased tremendously and we are prepared for the future: we are introducing optimizations to our range of products much faster.”

Heinrich Steinbrecher

Managing Partner

Bürener Maschinenfabrik GmbH

“I strongly believe lean management can set the foundation for good business performance in a dynamic market environment as in China. The UNITY team successfully motivated our lean agents and our management team to identify improvement potentials and develop an implementation plan. We are very pleased to see that all of the initiated actions are being managed by lean agents now and that all of our employees are participating in them.”

Markus Clement

Managing Director

EMAG Taicang

Project Stories

Development of Roadmap 2020

Machinery and plant engineering
Development of Roadmap 2020

Industrie 4.0 Implementation

Initial Situation and Project Targets

As a leader of technology and innovation, Lufthansa Technik (LHT) discussed the specific meaning of Industrie 4.0 to their company as a provider of maintenance, repair, and overhaul services (MRO) early on. The goal of this project with UNITY is to drive their implementation of MRO 4.0 forward. In order to meet the management’s high expectations, the focus is placed on rapid implementation and prompt achievement of initial successes. Furthermore, UNITY is responsible for managing the MRO 4.0 program using a combination of smaller, faster projects and larger, more comprehensive projects.

UNITY’s expertise was utilized to develop end-to-end processes in production, for which a comprehensive Roadmap 2020 was created that consists of specific implementation projects in the following four dimensions: “networking,” “equipment,” “process, products, components,” as well as “organization, staff.” The consultants function as the main point of contact of overall program management, and as interdivisional coordinators in order to drive projects forward with the individual project leaders. In addition to breaking the activities down into manageable parts, another key success factor is the rapid acceptance of planned innovations on the shop floor.

One of the implementation projects aims to create transparency in the requirements and the availability of ground support equipment (GSE), as well as establish new processes for supplying equipment. Thus, GSE, service staff and coordinators will all be networked together. For example, by utilizing additional sensors, a ground power unit will be able to automatically request refueling services, should it not have enough diesel fuel to fulfill the subsequent order. Overall, this project will be a blueprint for the coordination of equipment across all LHT locations worldwide.

“UNITY has helped us decisively in making the topic of Industrie 4.0 tangible for MRO operations. With the Industrie 4.0 expertise of UNITY consultants we were able to translate our ambitious goals into prototypes and transferable functional models. The core elements of the project are systematic networking in production, key figure-optimized resource management, and the successive raising of process maturity. UNITY, as the 'advocate of the client', helped validate our requirements for the corresponding tracking technologies and IoT platforms.”

Gerrit Rexhausen

Program Manager MRO 4.0

Lufthansa Technik

Your Contact

Michael Wolf

Partner, Business Area Lead

Hamburg, Germany

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Thomas Ulrich

Partner

Paderborn, Germany