Centralized data collection increases efficiency and reduces errors

How Techsoft mapped out a centralized data collection solution for Emtelle's production — with full traceability, central alarming on errors and significantly fewer manual errors in quality measurements.

The challenge

Emtelle is a market leader in Europe in the production of pipes and optical fiber systems, with production including a site in Sønder Felding. The production lines — cable/pipe printers, coilers, diameter gauges, pressure testers, manual ball testing and label printers — required many manual processes around the necessary quality measurements. With tight tolerances when fibers are blown into small-diameter pipes, errors in manual measurements can be costly to fix if a buried cable has to be dug up again. Emtelle wanted to eliminate the manual handling and instead automatically collect valid data in an electronic report.

The solution

Techsoft visited Emtelle's production facility in Sønder Felding and reviewed all the processes to understand the setup and the challenges. This resulted in a proposed solution covering both hardware and software: consolidating the different networks, a single combined label with selected information per product, and collecting raw data in a database. From there, data could be visualized in an overarching system with monitoring and central alarming on errors — and customized reports could be generated on both current and historical data.

Along the way, Techsoft also identified further areas where gains could be made by optimizing the processes.

Identified gains

• Full traceability across the entire production
• Eliminates errors in manual measurements
• Generation of data and statistics for future projects
• A single electronic report for each product
• On-site quality assurance
• Frees up resources for other tasks