Werma wins award for Industry 4.0 project

On 19 February 2016 Secretary of State Peter Hofelich announced Werma Signaltechnik as one of the prize winners in the second round of the competition to find 100 locations for Industry 4.0 in Baden-Württemberg. Werma  is the first company in the Tuttlingen district and the Black Forest Baar-Heuberg region to win such an award. 20 companies in total received an award that recognises the achievement in implementing Industry 4.0 in their businesses.

The Baden-Württemberg Alliance Industry 4.0 is using the competition to identify innovative concepts from industry which demonstrate the successful pairing of intelligent computerised systems and value added production processes. The jury of experts evaluates not only the scale of innovation but also the practical relevance to Industry 4.0.

Werma has been rewarded for its innovative, simply to retrofit machine data collection and monitoring system (MDC). “We are enormously happy to have received this award for our Industry 4.0 solution,” commented CEO Matthias Marquardt at the end of the award ceremony. “It shows that we are on the right path with our MDC system.”

It is quick and simple to retrofit the MDC monitoring system – any signal tower can be converted to an MDC monitoring system. The addition of a transmitter and receiver unit to the modular signal tower creates a common interface for all productive stations, whether a machine or piece of equipment or a manual workstation. Type of equipment or age is of no importance.

The software makes the production process completely transparent and data analysis and reports made available. An extension to the system permits machines and processes to communicate with one another for improved co-ordination of production processes.

The real benefit to the customer is the availability of precise and impartial data, analysis and reports which home in on non-productive times, hidden capacity potential and cost optimisation opportunities in the manufacturing process. The data enables quick and easy implementation of cost improvement and process optimisation measures.