Metz-Werke GmbH & Co. KG
Tool for Shorter Processes

"On-time delivery, customer trust, and quality are essential to our success in the systems business."

Reinhard Neumüller , Director of Technology and
Quality Assurance at Metz

The Complete Story

Expertise in Plastics Technology

Just like their customers, plastics technicians are under extreme pressure to save time and costs. They have to supply increasingly complex components as quickly and as cost-effectively as possible while meeting stringent quality demands. "On-time delivery, customer trust, and quality are essential to our success in the systems business," stresses Neumüller. This is why quality assurance plays such an important role at Metz-Werke. At the same time, the company is using modern software tools to optimize its development and manufacturing processes for plastics.

A key step in this direction was taken last year by replacing the CAD system, Mechanical Desktop, with CoCreate's 3D software, OneSpace Modeling. "We decided to go with CoCreate software because we work with many different customers who all use different CAD systems," explains Michael Kloos, project manager at Metz-Werke. "OneSpace Modeling allows us to import data as volume or surface models in excellent quality and then process the data intelligently without needing to know its origin."

Need for Online Collaboration

The plastics division mainly prepares part data for production and then optimizes it for injection-molding. Plastics experts create just the injection-mold design rather than the entire injection-molded tool. Metz assigns detailed construction and manufacturing to external specialists who can implement projects on time. These partners, who are often based abroad, receive intensive guidance until the parts are ready for color matching and production.

Because of its specific constellation of globally active customers and foreign mold builders, the plastics division really needs web-based collaboration. To simplify things, three client licenses for the OneSpace.net collaboration solution were obtained along with the OneSpace Modeling software. A virtual project workspace was created on the CoCreate server for storing CAD models, drawings, and other project-related information. OneSpace.net is also used as a platform for data conversion, which means there is no need to purchase interfaces for all possible CAD systems.

Since Metz uses OneSpace.net as a hosted service, software installation and maintenance is quick and easy. The client software is automatically installed and updated when a team member clicks the online meeting invitation email link. Thanks to full Outlook integration, invitations, meeting logs, notification of updated documents, etc., are automatically sent to the members of the project team.

Shorter Decision-Making Process

The plastics experts mainly use the collaboration application for synchronized collaboration, which means viewing component models simultaneously or discussing changes with suppliers online. The online meetings can be called very quickly and, according to project members, really do allow work in real-time. The log function included in OneSpace.net documents the decisions made during a meeting in either text or video form. The log is stored in the project workspace and can be viewed by all team members.

From the users' point of view, the biggest advantage of collaboration is working together on a model without having to fax stacks of paper back and forth. All participants in online meetings can simultaneously assess any necessary changes and discuss possible alternatives while they all view the model. This reduces the risk of misunderstandings, particularly when users are not communicating in their native language. "The decision-making process is also faster since we can approve changes directly in the meetings," says Kloos.

Since Metz has only been using the application for just under a year, it is not yet possible to make a complete assessment of the effectiveness of collaboration. "However, the fact that we are able to make decisions so much more quickly allows us to cut out at least one week per project," estimates Neumüller. Plus, because everything up to the construction phase is performed online, one to two trips to the tool supplier are eliminated. With around ten major projects a year, that's more than ten trips. The average project run times have been reduced by 15 percent thanks to the CoCreate solution, and this despite the increasing complexity of the tools.

Company Profile

Upon hearing the name Metz, photographers immediately think of high-performance flash units, even though the much more important pillar for this traditional Germany-based company is its consumer electronics business. Metz-Werke GmbH & Co. KG generates about 80 percent of its annual sales from television sets that are exported throughout the world; the remaining 20 percent is split between its photo electronics and systems businesses. The plastics technology division manufactures high-quality plastic parts for their own products and also supplies parts to other manufacturers of consumer electronics or customers from the automobile industry.

Plastics is one of the Metz-Werke core competencies. Of the over 700 employees at the company, 100 currently work in this division and offer customers a broad range of system solutions and services. "Our main business lies in manufacturing and assembling large-volume plastic parts with decorative surface finishing," says Reinhard Neumüller, who is responsible for technology and quality assurance at Metz-Werke.

For more information, please visit: www.metz.de/en/.

Metz-Werke has to supply increasingly complex components as quickly and as cost-effectively as possible while meeting stringent quality demands.