MAN Trucks AG

Leaner production through safety stocks tailored to market demand

Minimizing inventory is one of the key objectives for the pull-oriented material provisioning in MNPS, the production system of MAN Trucks AG in Nuremberg. MAN has set up so-called supermarkets, in order to provide the extremely high diversity of components needed for truck assembly. With the help of a Control solution by flexis at MAN Trucks AG in Nurembergthe components are commissioned in order of the assembly sequence.

Supermarket Management at MAN Trucks AG, Nuremberg

Currently, the supermarkets supply the assembly line with about 500 different part numbers. The goal is to continue to increase this number up to 1,500 part numbers. A particular challenge is the two-phased commissioning, which is carried out in the supermarket area. Here the so-called "ultra slow movers" are pre-picked and placed next to the regular supermarket areas. Analogous to the assembly operation, the commissioning is organized into parts families. For each order and each specific parts family, all exotic part numbers are commissioned into a sequence-container. With “LogiZug” these containers then automatically find their way to the assembly line. The sequence information is provided by flexis, the exact timing is the result of the pull event triggered by an empty sequence container. As reference the demand dates are used, which were calculated in the flexis application SMC (component availability).

The supermarket control system allows the visualization of the demand dates via an assembly summary. In addition each individual demand is tagged by means of a label printer. This way flexis provides time-and space-savings and supports the smooth running of lean production. For the case of missing parts the flexis solution includes a 30 day history, in which missing parts are highlighted in red. This allows the specific rework of individual orders, if necessary.