Smart Press Shop: World’s most modern Press Shop for Body Parts relies on BIC Platform

• The Smart Press Shop (SPS) chooses BIC Platform
• The BIC Platform serves as an IMS for the future process and quality management in the world’s most modern press shop
• Smart Press Shop: "The BIC Platform convinced us as a cloud-native solution with functional diversity."

The IT specialist GBTEC Software AG implements its cloud-native digitization suite BIC Platform at Smart Press Shop GmbH & Co. KG as an integrated management system. The Smart Press Shop, a joint venture between Porsche and the Schuler Group, is currently working intensively on setting up its highly digitalized press shop to produce outer skin panels in Halle (Germany). Since the beginning of the planning phase, the young company focuses on digital and flexible production using state-of-the-art cloud solutions.

The Smart Press Shop is convinced of the BIC Platform as an innovative software for process and quality management

The Smart Press Shop explains: "We have a clear vision for our press shop. It should operate with the highest degree of automation and benefit from maximum digitalization and cloud-based organization. As a supplier to automotive manufacturers, we have particularly high-quality management requirements. These requirements, born from the management standard ISO 9001 as well as the IATF 16949 coming from the automotive industry, are considered from the very beginning for the development of our process landscape. In order to optimally integrate all employees, we have started looking for a smart solution for an integrated management system instead of an isolated QM solution".

In addition to the native cloud environment, performance and usability were decisive criteria in the tool evaluation. On top of that, the solution component for process modeling and analysis, called BIC Process Design, convinced users and managers with its comprehensive document connection and fast access to controlled documents such as manuals, process instructions or process descriptions.

The Smart Press Shop explains: "For us, the total package of GBTEC was the decisive factor. From the state-of-the-art software and the convincing product presentation to the comprehensive training and consulting offer".

BIC Platform will support the execution of processes from the very first day of production

The factory will start its production in April 2021 and will benefit from the BIC Platform as an integrated solution for business process management and quality management right from the start of manufacturing. The BIC Platform will map production-relevant end-to-end processes as well as support processes from various areas such as maintenance, sales and logistics.

GBTEC’s suite serves all Smart Press Shop employees with its intuitive and customizable interface as a central knowledge base for processes and quality management. The offered SaaS solution with its new app design can be used optimally by all SPS employees on every device. It also covers the requirements of standards-compliant quality management, for example by generating multi-level process releases or automatic resubmissions. This ensures that the Smart Press Shop is optimally prepared for the upcoming certifications.

GBTEC founder and CEO Gregor Greinke is pleased about the trust that the Smart Press Shop places in GBTEC: "It is impressive how Porsche and Schuler are implementing the new press shop as a lighthouse project for Industry 4.0 with a stringent cloud-first strategy. Of course, we are proud that our digitalization suite BIC Platform as a central component supports the planning and operation of the world’s most modern press shop in a process-based and efficient way."

About Smart Press Shop

The Smart Press Shop GmbH & Co. KG is a joint venture of Dr. Ing. h. c. F. Porsche AG and Schuler AG, a subsidiary of the Andritz Group. Together they are building a company for the manufacture of body parts in Halle (Saale). Efficient, innovative and flexible, the press shop will soon be a reliable partner for all automobile manufacturers. The focus will be on the production of outer skin parts in aluminum or steel. Due to the high degree of automation and digitalization, smaller batch sizes can also be offered at economically attractive conditions.