Steel fabricator works on digital workshop

Ferross Steel Construction has grown from a local forge to a leading steel fabricator since 1893. Constantly innovating, the company is now working with Liemar to create a digital workshop. And that goes far beyond digitizing the planning board and making tablets available. 

Ferross and Liemar are valued partners of each other. "We have been working with Liemar's ERP system for 25 years," says Mark Schuurmans of Ferross Steel Construction. "As a progressive company, we want to be at the forefront and keep innovating. Therefore, we are working step by step on Ferross 2.0, a comprehensive program that involves, among other things, a change in the production process. The entire flow in the company will be shaken up, and the digital workshop is part of that. In fact, in 2021 we expressed the ambition to be completely paperless by 2024. We are not that far yet, but the year is not over yet. In the meantime, we are consuming over 80% less paper. That's the equivalent of a full-time employee in print work."

Mining information

The first association with a digital workshop is often that drawings are sent digitally into the workshop, notes Niels Oudenaarden of Liemar. "That is only one aspect. You should actually see the workshop as a construction site where a wealth of information is hidden. Information that you want to mine. So the digital workshop is the extension of your ERP system. But what do you want and can you do with it? You can very easily register hours and time within the structure followed from work preparation. That's step one. Then you can also look at the progress. Which parts are finished and which are not? And share that information directly and visualize it in the 3D model. But the digital workshop goes much further. Recording errors or deviations is also possible, as is posting comments on a drawing from the shop floor. It improves communication between different images, but of course requires structure."

Progress Check

Ferross is working step-by-step to roll out the digital workshop, which will soon provide every employee in the workshop with their own tablet. "We announced this intention about a year ago during a get-together," says Schuurmans. "The 'youth' were super enthusiastic, the slightly older generation a bit skeptical. That's why we chose to start with a group of ten employees, a mixed group from younger people to employees with little to no experience with a tablet. They have since become our ambassadors and are helping with the further rollout of the digital workshop." Once familiar with this new way of working, a world opens up for them, according to Schuurmans. "Our people in the workshop can see in 3D what they are making and the progress of a particular project. The work preparation, in turn, no longer has to make estimates based on a pile of steel, because the progress is now tangible in the system." 

Continuous learning and improvement

Through the tablet, employees can also very easily report a problem or anomaly with a product. "The item in question then turns red in the app. The report also comes up in the ERP system and is immediately forwarded to the relevant department," Schuurmans explains. "This way, employees in the workshop no longer have to search for the draughtsman responsible and can immediately move on to the next item. The item is then blocked for all other employees until the defect is resolved and reported ready." And so there are numerous advantages of the digital workshop. Oudenaarden: "We help companies like Ferross to be future-oriented businesses. That includes a bit of digitization and software. That was always something from the office, but now comes into the workshop and goes back to the office iteratively. By making the total process transparent in this way, you start to see that some processes turn out not to be so efficient after all. It's continuous learning and improvement. Even at Ferross after 25 years. And we take those lessons with us to other clients as well."