4 Success Factors For Rapid Digital Transformation on The Shop floor

Customer Reference: thyssenkrupp Rasselstein Drives Their Digital Transformation With Workerbase

Thyssenkrupp Rasselstein,  a world leader in packaging steel production, has been driving its digital transformation with Workerbase’s Connected Worker Platform. By digitizing and streamlining processes, the team at thyssenkrupp Rasselstein has achieved remarkable results, including significant material savings and improved worker productivity. Our collaboration exemplifies how Workerbase actively transforms shop floor operations, empowering workers to contribute to continuous improvements, and establishing thyssenkrupp Rasselstein as a digital leader in the industry.

The Challenge
Like many industrial operations, thyssenkrupp Rasselstein faced the challenge of ensuring efficiency and agility in their complex production processes. Thyssenkrupp Rasselstein urgently needed to find ways to implement digital tools faster, cut down on material waste, and gather better insights from their shop floor operations. Before the introduction of Workerbase, many of their processes were still paper-based and siloed into different IT infrastructures, making it difficult to implement cross-functional solutions rapidly and capture workers’ ideas. These gaps slowed down process improvements and hampered the company’s goal to maintain market leadership in an increasingly competitive landscape.

Business Impact
Workerbase provided a scalable, low-code platform that addressed thyssenkrupp Rasselstein’s challenges head-on. By simplifying the development of custom apps, Workerbase enabled their team to digitize their operations faster. The solution also empowered workers to actively engage with the platform, offering their insights and ideas directly from their day-to-day experience on the shop floor. 

As Oliver Hoffmann, CTO of thyssenkrupp Rasselstein, explains: 

“From the board of thyssenkrupp Rasselstein, we see a great opportunity with Workerbase to digitally and sustainably improve efficiency on the shop floor. We want to make an important contribution to securing our market leadership. With Workerbase, we are able to design processes across systems with manageable effort, significantly increasing our productivity and reducing working capital.”

Four Success Factors for the Digital Transformation

1. Rapid App Development: Leveraging Workerbase’s low-code platform, the thyssenkrupp team deployed many apps improving processes such as order validation and material management. This speed allowed them to quickly address pressing issues on the shop floor and launch improvements that reduced tied-up capital and increased worker productivity. Joint events, such as an innovation hackathon, ensured early buy-in of key stakeholders and contributed to project success.
2. Worker-Led Innovation: The platform’s simplicity allowed shop floor workers to take ownership. More than 20 ideas for improvements were collected directly from operators, turning them into the true innovators of digital transformation. “I rarely experience colleagues asking for something because they see it works and say, “I want this!” Issues that have been frustrating for a long time were solved quickly. This is an outstanding feature of Workerbase.” says Oliver Hoffmann, CTO of thyssenkrupp Rasselstein.
3. Cross-System Process Design: With Workerbase, thyssenkrupp Rasselstein was able to create overarching workflows spanning different IT systems and databases, enhancing productivity and delivering real-time visibility into their operations. The ease of integration across systems also ensured the continuity of their operations without lengthy migration processes.
4. Continuous Improvement: Data collected from digitizing processes and linking systems allowed for insights to improve processes continuously. Inefficiencies and gaps in processes that were previously unnoticed and constrained by digital solution development times could be resolved quickly.

According to Ralph Christ, VP Production 

“I am particularly proud of how well Workerbase has been embraced by my employees. After the first project was successfully implemented, word spread so quickly that within a short time, we had 20 ideas from all areas—from maintenance, machine operators, quality, to logistics—everyone wants to implement use cases. We’ve now created a roadmap to fully digitalize the plant in the coming weeks and months.”

Summary
thyssenkrupp Rasselstein’s partnership with Workerbase stands as a powerful example of how a Connected Worker Platform can drive digital transformation. The results speak for themselves: faster app development, significant material cost savings, and a fully engaged workforce contributing to continuous improvement. 

“With Workerbase, we are able to generate new insights, identify improvement potentials on the shop floor, and quickly implement them,”

emphasized Mario Kossmann, VP Digital Solutions, showcasing the impact of Workerbase in fostering a culture of innovation from the ground up.

Through this collaboration, thyssenkrupp Rasselstein has not only enhanced its productivity and efficiency but is well on its way to securing its position as a market leader in sustainable and digital production.

Watch the video to hear directly from the team at thyssenkrupp Rasselstein and see how Workerbase is revolutionizing their operations.