Greiner Packaging making use of MES CAT

Factors such as sustainability and digital transformation are shaping packaging production. Ensuring resource-efficient production – while avoiding subsequent modifications or additional material and energy consumption wherever possible – is a key part of Greiner Packaging’s sustainability strategy. For this to happen, it is absolutely essential for processes on the shop floor to be continuously supervised and monitored around the clock and in every plant.

Greiner Packaging is using MES CAT SUITE, T.CON’s SAP-based manufacturing execution system (MES), to digitally transform its production and more, as well as using this service to obtain information. The machine times (setup time, downtime, and production time) are simultaneously transmitted to SAP ERP, where they are linked to the production order. And at the same time, in the opposite direction – MES CAT communicates bidirectionally – approved production orders from SAP ERP are immediately made available on the shop floor. Time-consuming and frequently erroneous manual data entry and paper printing of production orders have become a thing of the past since the system’s introduction.

At the same time, the combination of production and ERP data makes it possible to conduct both technical and commercial evaluations at all production levels. After a successful implementation project, we are now benefiting from having an excellent environment for carrying out evaluations.

As well as its seamless integration into SAP ERP and SAP Business Warehouse (SAP BW), the T.CON solution is also an impressive MES due to its flexibility in adapting to discrete manufacturing, with its high volume and performance levels.

As part of the MES project, more than 500 systems were connected in 15 plants around the world – from injection molding to extrusion machines and from thermoforming machines to innovative Kavoblow machines for injection stretch blow molding. MES CAT is now being optimized to ensure that it meets the individual plants’ requirements. At the same time, the solution is being implemented gradually in the other plants until they all eventually work with it. MES CAT is also expected to play its part in the Fourth Industrial Revolution in the foreseeable future, helping to detect production and material faults at an early stage via predictive quality assurance so that these imperfections can be reduced to a minimum. This brings us one step closer to achieving our smart factory vision for Greiner Packaging.