ERP connection for feedback stations

A future-investment: Digitalization & sustainability in the industry

The Siegerland-based company König + Co. GmbH specializes in the industrial manufacture of boiler heads. Various workstations are used in the production of the heads, and feedback on employee working hours and machine running times is essential for the correct recording of the manufacturing process. Until now, this data has been documented manually using printed forms, which is not only time-consuming but also consumes a large amount of paper. In order to make this process more efficient and sustainable, CONZE and König collaborated on a project to implement an application that communicates with an existing ERP system and serves as a feedback platform at the required workstations. The front end was installed on permanently installed desktop PCs running Windows and is controlled by users via touch operation. Employees can log in in advance with an RFID chip.

We already prepared something: DASPA Framework as the basis for individual development

What makes this project so special, and we are very pleased about this, is that CONZE was able to provide a customized solution for König in a very short time: Based on the in-house DASPA framework, an extension (frontend and backend) could be provided quickly, with which information from the ERP system could be read and processed via the given REST API. The DASPA extension has also been built to run 24/7 and can always be expanded with new features.

Tight timing with outstanding results – system running!

The first phase of front-end development included a screen design that visualized the flow of the new application and served as the basis for implementation. This allowed the basic widgets to be created and configured at an early stage. At the same time, authentication to the ERP system's REST API was implemented in the back-end to ensure direct communication between the systems from the outset. In addition, the front-end extension was already connected to the back-end extension via the REST endpoints to be defined during this early phase. In the second phase, all front-end views were created and data transfer for the required information in the main view (order overview) and the masks with feedback information was ensured in the back-end. Phase three then focused, among other things, on the display of work processes being carried out in parallel on an employee's machine and login/registration via RFID chip. This also required the creation of an additional .NET application to read the RFID readers via a serial port and transfer the chip information to the front end. Extensive testing of the workflow in a customer-oriented environment ultimately showed that the feedback process worked as desired. The rollout for König went smoothly, and the application worked right away in live operation. A big thank you to our team for their great work! We can now say: the customer is king - and he is extremely satisfied! Thanks to this great project, which will continue with the development of new features.