Siemens helps Steklarna Hrastnik build digital roadmap

Glass manufacturer Steklarna Hrastnik is planning a series of investments over the next few years to convert its current its Hrastnik site into a smart factory by the year 2022. To develop a roadmap for investments and developments, the company sought out Siemens’ digital consultancy service for glassmakers.

Siemens Digitalization Consulting head Steeve Baudry explains, “Due to the nature of our Process Industry and the life-cycle of the assets, the digitalisation roadmap has to take into account the existing automation and IT systems.

“Specifically how to introduce new technologies in an existing environment, how to benefit from the latest technologies but without changing everything, in other words how to include the new technologies into the existing IoT landscape.

“We focus on a roadmap over the next five years. This gives an acceptable horizon for investment and satisfy the CFO community while keeping the digital road at a manageable complexity level because such a roadmap involves many projects that are technically interconnected.

“This includes cyber security and automation networks, or MES and Document Management systems for example.

“Keeping the roadmap within a three to five year horizon results in proposed traditional modernisation projects, while looking at a 10-year roadmap will be more a ‘picture of the future’ rather than a concrete roadmap.

“To guarantee that we deliver, concrete and actionable results, we follow the same approach.

“We investigate with customers what they want to achieve with digitalisation – do they want to achieve improved time to market, improved quality, increased energy efficiency?

“Then we investigate the existing systems that are in place. Do they have any ERP system, how is the automation layer developed, how is the automation network connected? What is its cybersecurity strategy? In other words, we try to reconciliate the top-down approach with the bottom up view from the field.

“Once we have a clear view on the strategy and the existing IT and OT landscape, we identify the most important projects that need to be implemented.

“We then calculate the investment for a specific plant, taking into account the existing assets and projects already in place, because a facility might already have some pieces of the solution under development or have plans to invest.

“We finally assess how we connect these new solutions to the plant and how much it costs.”

In this instance, the client, Steklarna Hrastnik, is a glass producer dedicated to glass packaging, glassware, and lighting, although they also produce handmade glass items as well as offer many other services. The Slovenia-based company is over 150 years old, but is guided by more modern and progressive leadership ideals. It is perhaps this forward thinking mindset that led the company to seek advice from Siemens

Turning to the topic of Steklarna Hrastnik General Manager Peter Cas, Baudry continued, “Mr. Cas knew he had to do something, he was aware of the benefits of digital but he wanted some support, some guidelines, a framework and expertise to proceed. Within a few weeks he had changed from digital sensitive to digitally ready.