Visualising quality data – process and systems integration at Treofan

The Treofan Group is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of food, packaging and technical films. With experience acquired over 40 years, the company markets its products in more than 90 countries. Its production volume is approximately 200,000 tonnes of film per year at sites in Germany, Belgium, Italy and Mexico. Treofan employs around 1,600 staff.

Developing a visualisation component for quality data Meta-Level Software AG’s task was to develop a visualisation component for quality data. Quality data is collected regularly during the production process. This data has to be compressed, visually prepared in a prompt fashion and made available to Quality Control in real time.

Integrating processes and systems across sites The IT landscape for business applications and production control systems within the company historically consisted of various SAP systems, not to mention several technologically different software solutions for managing production data. The latter are also referred to as ‘manufacturing execution systems’ or ‘MESs’ for short. A process and systems integration project was therefore set up with the aim of harmonising the processes and standardising the software used. A new MES based on an existing in-house development was also addressed in addition to the cross-site introduction of SAP ERP 6.0.

The Meta-Level team worked hand-in-hand with Treofan to develop the MES components that interact directly with the production machines and SAP.

The project was launched in early summer 2008. In April 2009, the new software was put into operation at the Treofan plants in Neunkirchen (Saarland) and Liège (Belgium). The changeover in Italy took place at the start of 2010.