C-Parts-Management: Digitalization is booming

Digitalization in C-parts management has gained rapid momentum in recent years. Kellner & Kunz has been intensively involved in C-parts management for around thirty years. Again and again, new systems have been developed for different industries, which make management even more flexible. It was around ten years ago that Kellner & Kunz developed the first digital warehouse and management systems for companies.

The company made use of well-known technologies such as RFID to develop clever systems that today set the trends in digital C-parts management. Kellner & Kunz is a leader in automated supply and e-business. Whether medium-sized companies or large corporations – it has long since ceased to be just about screws. The Corona crisis has given digitalization a new boost in this industry as well. Because, lock down or not, the supply chain must never break.

120,000 items want to be coordinated, beleaguered, delivered and cleared. This is a matter of first and foremost logistical perfection. The lack of a simple C-part can quickly lead to a production standstill. Kellner & Kunz knows this and therefore delivers just in time. With the new logistics centre in Wels, the company has equipped itself for all these and future tasks.

C-parts management today is about much more than that: the flow of goods is accompanied by an enormous exchange of data. Big Data sends its regards: demand determination, stock levels, invoicing and other information are increasingly networking Kellner & Kunz with the customer to form a partnership at eye level. Whether in a manufacturing company, on a construction site or in a plant workshop – to ensure that everything is always in the right design and the right quantity in the right place, there are modern container and Kanban systems or automated solutions, often a combination of all. These systems operate completely autonomously by means of contactless transmission such as RFID technology or also by means of an integrated weighing system in the container base – the so-called RECA iSCALE.

Goods are always where they are needed
Günter Hladik, authorised signatory and sales manager of the Austrian Industry Division at Kellner & Kunz: “During Corona it was shown once again: our supply chain works. For our customers, this means that the supply chain never breaks down, because our digital C-parts management systems record and transmit all requirements in real time. This provides maximum supply security – even under corona conditions.” So how should one imagine such automated reordering? Hladik: “Our RFID KANBAN systems for direct material and the iSTORAGE dispensers for indirect material detect requirements independently around the clock and immediately reorder the items.

The customer can rely on us to deliver the products at the right time, in the right quantity, at the right place and also no longer has the hassle of procuring C-parts!” C-parts include fastening parts, tools of all kinds and in the own brand RECA, personal protective equipment, chemical technical products, hygiene and cleaning agents, cutting and grinding wheels, soldering and welding technology articles. In addition, there are many articles from other product areas, such as sheet metal or electrical parts, which complete the range.

Process cost calculator presents economic efficiency
Kellner & Kunz is a cooperation partner of the Smart Production Lab at the FH JOANNEUM Kapfenberg, where a process cost calculator was recently jointly developed. “New customers rightly ask us what quantifiable benefits our digital C-parts management system solutions offer them. The project goal was therefore to develop a process cost calculator tool for the procurement process of C-parts on a scientifically sound basis together with FH JOANNEUM,” says Günther Altenburger, authorized signatory and sales manager of the Austrian Industry Division, outlining the project assignment. An interdisciplinary team of young managers from Kellner & Kunz and industrial engineering students from Industrial Management developed the Activity-Based-Costing (ABC) calculator for the procurement of C-parts. “With this tool, we can work with our customers to demonstrate the effects of C-parts management system solutions in procurement process costs. In this way, we create transparency about the economic efficiency in the specific application,” says Altenburger, describing the benefits of the project result.