Bene optimises processes in the long term with inline scanners from Hecht
Delivering flawless furniture parts for assembly
Checking the quality of finished components before assembly: Bene in Waidhofen an der Ybbs did this for many years with employees at several stations. Since 2023, this process step has been fully automated on an inline scanner from Hecht AG.
No standstill, but permanent further development. This is the credo – beyond the innovation of the product portfolio – at the office furniture manufacturer Bene from Waidhofen an der Ybbs in Austria. The latest result of this guiding principle: a state-of-the-art sorting centre with a total of four robots from the IMA Schelling Group, into which all finished furniture parts are fed before assembly. But sorting and buffering were not the only aims of the investment. At the same time, a measuring system for furniture parts from Hecht AG moved in. The ‘4i’ inline scanner ensures consistent, error-free workpiece quality at the entrance to the new system – and no rude awakening – when all the parts arrive in the correct order in the assembly department and the final production phase begins.
‘We can now look back on several years of experience with batch size 1,’ summarises Norbert Emmerling, Project and Process Management at Bene. ‘Between 2000 and 2003, we completely reorganised production with the help of Porsche Consulting. And it was a huge step: towards systems that set themselves up in continuous operation, with corresponding data preparation or completely new data records to identify the individual workpieces. Back then, we learnt from our daily work and kept optimising until everything was running to our satisfaction. This was followed by the next step starting in 2015: the automation of further process steps. To make the throughput operation processes even more efficient and reduce costs. For this purpose, we identified various areas of production.’
One of these was quality inspection. In the past, employees inspected the parts at several stations. This is now done by the Hecht scanner. The measuring system carries out dimensional measurement, borehole inspection and surface inspection in a single pass. If a fault is detected, the workpiece is ejected directly after the measuring table and an employee can check whether there really is a fault. Or possibly just a contamination. If the furniture part does not meet the target, the employee triggers repeat production.
‘The quality check takes place at a point when all production steps have already been completed,’ explains Lukas Hochstrasser, Industrial Engineer at Bene. ‘From the classic storage-saw combination, stacks created by hand are transported on load carriers with automated guided vehicles to the edge banding and then to the drilling machine. At this point, they are still sorted according to panel thickness. Then it goes – also by AGV – to the scanner and automatically into the sorting buffer,’ says Hochstrasser.
The maximum dwell time in the sorter is six hours, totalling around half a day‘s batch. Storage takes place via the lower level, provided the scanner has not rejected the items as faulty. Project-related retrieval in the correct sequence then takes place via an upper level. A total of three robots sort, store and retrieve, a fourth positions the parts and deposits them upright in a transport vehicle. And now they are no longer sorted by type, but ‘colourfully’ mixed, as specified by the customer order. Thanks to the ‘4i’ inline scanner from Hecht, there are no processing errors from the previous process steps.
Error-free assembly with the "4i" inline scanner
Thanks to Hecht’s innovative “4i” inline scanner, Bene minimizes processing errors and optimizes the assembly process.
This approach has proved its worth at Bene: ‘We no longer have any unplanned stops in assembly because parts have faults. But what is at least as important is that the results of the scanner help us to make the previous processes more reliable. By analysing the data, we can draw important conclusions from the previous processing steps. For example, when and why a certain error occurs more frequently. In this way, the scanner ensures that we continuously improve production, adds Emmerling.
Bene opted for the new solution in 2019. Although the pandemic delayed the project overall in the following years, this did not detract from its successful completion. The project was finally completed in February 2024. ‘We had a dedicated project team at all times: on our side, but also at the Ima Schelling Group and, of course, Hecht AG,’ confirms Industrial Engineer Lukas Fromhund, who is also part of the team at Bene. ‘We came from an extremely high level of quality and had to commit to standards that could pass the scanner. After all, it doesn‘t do anyone any good if every second part is rejected,’ says Fromhund. ‘Nevertheless, the end result must be a satisfied customer and a flawless piece of furniture.’
Intelligent measurement technology for full quality control
‘Thanks to batch size 1, we are talking about a huge variety,’ explains Emmerling. ‘Where is which drill hole or blind hole, which milling or rebate and how does IMA describe them? We had to bring everything together and adapt the scanner‘s configuration and inspection software accordingly. The associated database is enormous, after all we are talking about around 2,500 parts per shift. With sizes ranging from 250 x 140 millimetres to 2,500 x 1,200 millimetres. A good description of the interfaces was essential from the very first day of the project. Here, 3Tec was also on board for the connection to the manufacturing execution system. Ultimately, however, we achieved the targeted system availability of over 90 per cent.’
Michael Hettich, CEO of Hecht AG, also describes the data issue as the biggest challenge in this project. ‘The IMA system uses the data in a completely different way to our scanner. It has to know exactly how the part is positioned, where a groove or drill hole is located, or rather where it should be located,’ says Hettich. And he is even more specific: ‘The only thing that is relevant for storage is which part it is – the scanner must have described it absolutely precisely. This means that data records have to be rotated or even mirrored in case of doubt. This required everyone involved to understand how the data records are transferred from the work preparation department to the processing systems and then to the scanner.’ Some things may sound trivial, but they are not. For example, the description of drill holes: round holes are often made up of several circular arcs. However, the whole hole is important for the measurement and not the individual contours. The scanner software must therefore recognise that the semicircle 1 in line 5 and the semicircle 2 in line 27 form a drilled hole. The centre point coordinates and diameter are determined based on the hole.
‘It should be noted that we have minimised the internal effort required to deliver products without errors through a high level of automation. We have already maximised the use of all systems in order to produce as error-free as possible and are continuing to fine-tune this thanks to the scanner. Without having to deploy more employees,’ says Emmerling. The decisive factor in the decision to opt for a Hecht scanner was the ability to precisely measure milled and drilled holes. ‘I no longer have to worry about a missing drill hole only becoming apparent during final assembly,’ summarises Hochstrasser. ‘Because we just check the completely finished parts.’
Emmerling emphasises the cooperation between all those involved as very positive. ‘The technical hurdles are often big and daunting. But usually manageable. It‘s much more important that everyone involved in the project wants the same thing and is looking through the same lens. Even if something may not succeed at the first attempt. Transparency is always important. That worked very well in this case. Even at times when we realised that we were making extreme demands on the Hecht company. This is the only way to create good, new and, above all, special solutions in the end.’
However, Hettich is quite self-critical of Hecht‘s performance: ‘To a certain extent, it only became clear during the course of the project how complex the data issue is. We had also set ourselves the target of selling five systems with this machine concept. And ended up with 16 in the order pipeline. Within a short space of time. That was indeed a major challenge, which was fortunately mastered to everyone‘s satisfaction.’
Emmerling summarises: ‘You can get very far with the right team and a viable concept. This project – and I have supervised several during my time at Bene – was certainly one of the most demanding. But also the most interesting and ultimately the most successful project that I was able to realise.’ And Norbert Emmerling and his dedicated team already have their sights set on the next improvement: ‘Starting with the cutting process, we have modernised a lot in recent years and automated it as described. Now, if we get the go-ahead from the management, it‘s the turn of the cutting itself.’
Doris Bauer
