Wilhelm Schumacher GmbH is now supporting the region with club sponsorship!
On 22.12.2022, the VDI -Bezirksverein Siegen e.V. thanked its long-standing supporting member Wilhelm Schumacher GmbH for its 65 years of support and presented it with a certificate for its support. In the picture (from left to right): Frank Kasperkowiak (Chairman VDI - Siegener Bezirksverein e.V.), Klemens Schulte (Managing Director Wilhelm Schumacher GmbH),Dr. Frank Pahl (Managing Director Wilhelm Schumacher GmbH), Marc Decker (Deputy Chairman VDI - Siegener Bezirksverein e.V.).
The sponsorship of the VDI - Siegen District Association began in 1957. The year in which the treaty establishing the European Economic Union was signed and the age of space travel was launched. Many of our current members were not yet born at that time. If we look back at that time today and at everything that was developed and implemented, it seems a long time ago.
This also applies to the development of screws and fasteners. Founded in 1906 and thus also through the difficult times of 1914 - 1945, the company continued to work on innovations and developments. Among other things, in 1990 Ford Werke presented Wilhelm Schumacher GmbH with the Q1 Award as the first European manufacturer of small screws, thus confirming the company's quality capability. The company continued to invest in line with its own standards and market requirements.
Despite his health restrictions, Wilhelm Schumacher GmbH (WSH) in Hilchenbach has given a new employee a career opportunity. Due to regular dialysis appointments, the inter-company trained metalworker was unable to perform traditional work in a multi-shift operation. With the help of the integration subsidy and supported employment, he was given the opportunity to work at WSH in a shift specially set up for him.
The employer was able to apply for the integration grant from the employment agency to hire him after the trial. In addition to the financial support, both the employee and the WSH company benefited from regular personal discussions with the employment agency, the integration service and the specialist department for disabled people in the Siegen-Wittgenstein district.
Most of the fasteners produced by Wilhelm Schumacher GmbH (WSH) in Hilchenbach, North Rhine-Westphalia, are used by premium manufacturers such as BMW, Daimler and Porsche in the automotive sector or Miele and Liebherr in the household appliance industry. It is clear that these customers “set the bar for quality very high”.
The long-established company therefore ensures the quality of the 4.5 million screws and cold-formed parts it produces every day with a comprehensive quality management system, which also incorporates the MES solution SK-go! from Schwer + Kopka that has been installed for many years. All 75 or so production systems are connected to the company network via the Schwer + Kopka machine terminals and exchange extensive operating data with the ERP and CAQ systems.
In addition to machine-integrated process monitoring, the quality of the fasteners is traditionally checked using SPC inspections during production. This means that WSH carries out 900 random samples a day as part of its factory self-inspection. “One of the main problems in the past was that our CAQ system demanded a random sample inspection after the prescribed inspection interval, even though the machine may not have produced the full interval,” recalls Dirk Heles, Head of Quality Management. “The CAQ system's due date display was often not synchronized with what was actually happening on the machine and was also not visible to the workers at their workstations. Particularly with our usual multi-machine operation, the workers were unsure when the inspections were really due. Events such as shift changes, tool breakage or retooling also resulted in irregular inspection intervals.” This was remedied by linking MES with CAQ, whereby the inspection frequency is now determined by the actual machine running time. Production only continues if all the required inspections have been carried out on time, otherwise the machine is stopped immediately.
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Whether first part, last part or ongoing production-related testing - each of these tests is an indispensable basis for monitoring production quality and avoiding process errors. For targeted, reliable “statistical process control” (SPC), the specified inspection system must be strictly adhered to. To ensure this, a manufacturer of fasteners opted for a consistent solution: production can only continue if the quality management system confirms that all the required tests have been carried out - if confirmation is not received, the machine is stopped immediately.
The core competence of the North Rhine-Westphalian company Wilhelm Schuhmacher is the production of fasteners. The daily challenge is that the fasteners are used in end products all over the world, which raise particular expectations in terms of quality simply because they are categorized as “premium”. Customers such as Miele and Liebherr in the household appliance industry or Daimler, BMW and Porsche in the automotive industry “set the bar high” and know no compromises - just like the supplier itself. The company ensures the quality of the around 4.5 million screws, cold-formed parts and steel-plastic composite parts it produces every day with a quality management system, the scope and effectiveness of which is constantly subject to self-critical review.