Siemens digital industries Electrolux Plant Simulation digital twin case study

Global appliance manufacturer, Electrolux, provides products for consumer and commercial markets in over 150 countries. With around 58,000 employees and 46 production sites, there is a broad scope for continual improvements. Creating globally uniform production facilities and assembly processes was an area where digitalisation could help in the business. Working with Siemens digital industries software, a project to create digital twins for all production sites was created to provide exact replicas of factories in the virtual world to test process improvements in an environment with no risk.

End to end process improvements

In the case study from Siemens digital industries, Electrolux used a range of Siemens digital industries software, with Plant Simulation (part of the Tecnomatix suite of products) being the tool used to give a strategic overview of end to end production processes. An area of focus for investigating process improvements with Plant Simulation was foaming the refrigerator walls with hardening. Process times at the foaming stage impact all areas before and after and could easily create bottlenecks. In revisiting this stage of production, the process was mapped and simulated as a one-piece flow. Using the data created in the Plant Simulation digital twin model, the team were able to find a way to eliminate the need for large buffers, saving approximately $2,000,000 by having one conveyor and one high-bay warehouse for 5,000 refrigerators.

Share plans visually and more

Along with validating process efficiency decisions, the dynamic data generated using Plant Simulation helps with further production decisions, as well as effectively communicate plans with a range of audiences. From the Electrolux digital twin project, Bernd Elbert, Director of Global Manufacturing Engineering – Food Preparation at Electrolux explained:

A big investment requires a lot of persuasion… With the good visualisation possibilities of Tecnomatix, I can show the management an early stage of planning that makes the process plausible… [Plant Simulation also helps] with the verification of assembly concepts as well as with the selection of suppliers for automation solutions and provides insights that I didn’t have before.

You can read the full case study about Plant Simulation and other Siemens digital industries software here. As simulation engineers specialising in Plant Simulation, the team at Simsol are always happy to chat about how a digital twin of your operation could help inform your manufacturing challenges. You can contact our team of specialist engineers with an email using the form at the bottom of the page.

To read the full Electrolux case study from Siemens click on the forklift truck below