After Chicago (USA) and Taicang (China), Trumpf has opened its third Smart Factory worldwide at its headquarters in Ditzingen. From now on, sheet metal components for the manufacturer's machine tools will be produced there. The Smart Factory also serves as a demonstration center where SMEs in particular can gain an insight into efficient sheet metal production. According to the company, networked production enables an increase in efficiency of up to 30 percent. "We have networked 30 machines in our new Smart Factory. This allows us to avoid rejects, reduce processing times and ensure greater efficiency. Our solution expertise for sheet metal processing is unique in this form worldwide," says Heinz-Jürgen Prokop, CEO Machine Tools at Trumpf.

From the warehouse to production

The Smart Factory in Ditzingen covers three halls with a total area of 5,000 m². It houses cutting, bending and welding machines as well as a large warehouse. They are networked with each other using driverless transport systems. "If you want to increase the efficiency of your sheet metal factory, you should focus primarily on the upstream and downstream work steps of the actual processing of your component. Especially in times of smaller batch sizes, faster response times and increasingly complex components, the networking of production processes and machines is the decisive competitive advantage for sheet metal fabricators," says Prokop.

The entire production is controlled from the so-called Control Center, where all important key figures from production come together in real time - from incoming orders to the finished component. Assistance systems support the employees in their day-to-day work. The entire production process can be monitored using the Trumpf TruTops Fab production control software via tablet, smartphone or smartwatch.

Demonstration center for SMEs

The new Smart Factory also serves as a demonstration center for sheet metal workers, who can see efficiency improvements in cutting, bending, punching and welding in a real production environment. New networking solutions and systems for production can be seen there, including entry-level solutions such as an AI-based sorting assistant. Ditzingen will also demonstrate how users can further network their production step by step, for example in logistics. Visitors can also see semi-autonomous production within the Smart Factory: Here, punching, laser and bending processes as well as a warehouse are seamlessly integrated.

In future, Trumpf sees itself even more as a solution provider for the entire production process and is also relying on partnerships to achieve this. For example, the industrial trucks that deliver and remove material from the machine tools come from partner Jungheinrich. The storage systems come from Stopa, a straightening and deburring machine from Arku and a measuring machine from Inspecvision.