After washing, the pipes are blown dry in this station. © Spinner Automation

Maier sent this request to various manufacturers of bar feeders. Almost all of them were too expensive in relation to the machine as a whole, as they were mostly designed for mass production. Only one manufacturer called the machine manufacturer, discussed the matter with him and together they developed a solution for the bar feeder that met all the customer's requirements. "All sections of the machine are unique," says Maier, who originally applied for a design position at Spinner Automation eight years ago, but was then hired by owner Dominik Jauch in sales and development because it was "simply a good human fit".

New development washing unit

In the next step, the tube is CNC machined. It is cut to length, the ends chamfered as required and then provided with precise cross holes. "They were the biggest challenge for us in this section because there are so many variations," says Maier. The second robot then picks up the piece and feeds it into the "washing machine". Originally, the 15 Spinner employees involved in the development thought that they would also find an external partner for this washing process. However, there was no suitable solution on the market. The obstacle here was also the many different variants. No standard machine could cope with the different lengths and diameters or could be further developed so that the pipes were completely free of metal chips. "This was completely new territory for us," admits the spinner project manager. The final step: the robot picks up the clean pieces and places them in certain compartments of a second rack. If the finished pipes are removed by an operator for further processing, the operator first scans the QR code of the order. A lamp indicates the correct compartment. This is intended to prevent errors. The computer then resets the number in the compartment.

Always new challenges

The feeding cell for the pipes with operating unit. © Spinner Automation

The competent impression that Martin Wagner had after the initial discussions became increasingly solidified. "We were always on schedule. The cooperation worked well and was unbureaucratic," summarizes the trained master mechanic, who has worked in testing and development departments for many years and has been a project manager at KW Automotive for seven years. One reason for the success of the project is that Dominik Jauch and Jörn Maier rely on the expertise and creativity of their employees. "Our customers practically always present us with challenges that we don't yet know how to solve in the first few weeks," explains the company boss. One person alone can no longer keep track of the complexity of customer requirements. Even classic project management fails when sales, CAD design, production and IT development have to work together. This is why Jauch turned his company on its head back in 2012: he handed over responsibility to teams that each have the necessary skills and develop suitable solutions together. For him, this is the future of German industry: "Our strength is individual production. We can only master its complexity through agile work organization," says Jauch.

Jörn Maier therefore saw himself merely as part of the team - more often in the role of moderator than expert. Depending on the topic, designers, programmers or even fitters took the lead in discussions with customers. "Five years ago, we probably wouldn't have managed the project," says the Managing Director, but during this time Spinner has acquired a lot of specialist knowledge through projects or brought additional expertise in-house with new employees. Some time ago, Maier sat in a meeting room with 15 colleagues and they wrote the first ideas for solutions on metaplan cards. They were all on an equal footing, so that intensive discussions could take place and disagreements could be raised at any time. Originally Scrum-oriented, Spinner has changed the method in practice over the years, breaking with some dogmas and adapting it to his own needs.

In order for the fully automatic machine to fit into the KW Automotive system, the programmers were repeatedly called upon. For example, they had to visualize the data on the monitors in a customer-specific look so that the machine remained familiar and easy to operate for the staff. Error reduction directly at the machine was desired, while it could be completely controlled from the office after preliminary work.

Jens Gieseler, freelance journalist / am