How Thyssenkrupp Rasselstein is leading the way in digitization by putting frontline workers first

About thyssenkrupp

Thyssenkrupp Rasselstein, Germany’s only packaging steel manufacturer, generates net sales of €2.2 billion annually, producing over 1.3 million tons of steel each year.

Thyssenkrupp Rasselstein is one of the worlds leading suppliers of packaging steel and is a subsidiary of thyssenkrupp Steel Europe AG. More than 90 percent of the steel they produce is used in the packaging sector, for example to package food, beverages or aerosols. The steel  is also used in non-packaging applications, in areas such as the automotive and electronics industries.

The Challenge

thyssenkrupp Rasselstein was looking for a central platform to consolidate their IT systems without disruptions or lengthy migration processes.

• Workers have to navigate across many siloed legacy IT systems to access the information needed for their jobs which was often inefficient and time consuming.
• Task progress and results weren’t recorded in real time due to data entry access being limited to legacy desktop stations, leading to inefficiencies and a lack of transparency.
• Existing IT infrastructure lacked the flexibility and adaptability to actually meet the needs of shop floor processes.
• A key incentive was that legacy systems should not be replaced immediately but integrated into the new solution without disrupting day to day operations.

The Solution

We provided thyssenkrupp the ability to internally build and implement new digital solutions using Workerbase. A key success factor was being able to involve the whole team in the development process, from IT personnel to shop floor workers. In only a few weeks, thyssenkrupp Rasselstein managed to:

1. Create a single User Interface unifying all existing systems
2. Create a strong pull from their frontline workers to expand deployment to all departments
3. Establish ownership at the frontline worker level for the digital solutions they deployed
4. Empower frontline workers with AI powered digital tools with seamless user adoption

Additionally, with the successful integration of Workerbase, they were now able to have a holistic real-time overview on all their processes, including systems that were previously only managed in their “Shadow IT” systems.

The Results

With only 10 weeks into the deployment of the Workerbase Connected Worker platform, thyssenkrupp Rasselstein has already managed to materialize significant improvements. Thyssenkrupp Rasselstein was able to implement several use cases across different departments and was able to significantly reduce task times and eliminated several redundant processes entirely. The transparency gained over their operations have also enabled continuous operational improvements moving forwards.