Collaborating on process automation

In four years, automation company BIM4Production® (formerly Profity Software) has gained a nice foothold in the concrete and steel industry with its BIM4Production® production software platform of the same name. This software platform enables element manufacturers to translate BIM models of various projects into optimal planning, production and logistics. During these processes, integral quality assurance is possible. We can also do something with that, thought owner Jan Tijhof of Polybouw Aluminium. This created a customized solution that is still being optimized and expanded, and from which other facade builders can undoubtedly benefit.

"Our cooperation goes back some twenty years," says Henk Jan Nieuwenhuis, general manager of BIM4production®. "At the time, Polybouw had an administrative system from Unit4 and an engineering system from Precision Technics - now Matrix - then Jan said, 'You guys do automation for steel companies, I would like that for my facade company too. Shouldn't we take that up together?' We then sat down with some automation companies and three months later we had a working system that was gradually developed further. Since then, Polybouw has been a strategic partner with whom we do new developments more often."

Flow

Whereas ERP software focuses on administrative tasks, BIM4Production® focuses on planning and generating structured information for the shop floor. Henk Jan: "In 2016, we acquired a concrete planning system, which was the first big step away from common administrative software. Administration looks at what happened after the fact and is not suitable for what we want: planning, organizing, making sure you have things in order in the factory. BIM4Production® is about good management of production, finding the optimal flow and ensuring production quality, which is what every precast company wants."

To scan is to know

That is also what Jan Tijhof had envisioned for years: a kind of facade tracking system in which all information is available to all involved at a detailed level. "Together with BIM4Production® we then started to develop this step by step," said Bert Maris, operational director and co-owner of Polybouw Aluminium. "We used to work entirely from drawings on paper. Then came working on screens and working with spreadsheets, but that still required a lot of manual work. We are now moving to a situation where all parts and elements have a code and any workstation can retrieve and adjust the status of any element at any time with one scan. So you always know where you can find something, the specifications of the element, when you can have something ready, and, when an element goes to construction or the precast builder, whether it goes out the door complete and undamaged. Compared to the books that had to be consulted for this before, the time saved by our people on the shop floor is enormous. With BIM4Production®, we can now control production from a single door to elements for 365 homes interchangeably and therefore also know what we can promise customers."

Eating late

Henk Jan compares it to preparing for a major sports competition. "A top athlete trains endlessly and does everything possible to appear at the start line well prepared. But if you eat too late just before the performance because you don't have good information about what you need, things still go wrong. Suppose twenty concrete elements are going to a project that Polybouw is supplying different frames for, with I'll mention, a different foil for the elements from the fifth floor up. If that goes wrong, you have a big problem. With BIM4Production® in both the wall and frame production process, you can make huge strides in this and easily prevent mistakes. By the way, our platform can communicate very well with other platforms, via files or via web services." 

Chain collaboration

"We are gradually moving toward an ideal situation," Bert adds. "With chain cooperation, we can also integrate the information from the supplier and the buyer, allowing the chain to work toward an optimal flow in planning. In the current trend toward more prefabrication, this is really becoming an important issue. More and more, our frames are not going directly to the construction site but to the prefab element builder. This is a good thing, because it meets the need to reduce nitrogen and transport movements, especially at urban construction sites."

Polybouw and BIM4Production® continue to cooperate intensively and invest in improving production automation. "The basis is there, we are now going to put in more learning money and scale up to optimize the system," concludes Henk Jan. "Both companies are putting a lot of time and energy into this. Polybouw is a frontrunner, other facade builders will soon be able to benefit from this in turn.