Quality in a safe perspective

GEBRA has risen to become the largest manufacturer of warning triangles in Europe. On the way there, the reflective helpers have to undergo strict tests. Requirements of the automobile manufacturers, which are even far above legal specifications, want to be fulfilled. The engineers at the car manufacturers are not squeamish. They test the product's functionality and durability for worldwide use under various climatic conditions, the smell with well-trained sensory organs and test drive over uncomfortable gravel test tracks in search of even the most abrupt creaking of the plastic. After all, only the best products are certified as original equipment quality. And quality is only achieved by those who work precisely.

Particular attention is paid to the retro-reflector (reflector), as it is the one that focuses and refracts any light, no matter how weak, in a thousand tiny prisms of a precisely calculated angle and throws it back into the eye of the beholder. In daylight as a fluorescent foil and at night as well as in the incident headlights of passing cars.

LED ensures growth

The precision with which GEBRA produces soon opens up a whole new field of business and lays the foundation for great growth: With the advent of the LED as a light source in modern automotive lights, reflectors are decoupled from the rear light. Chapeau for the engineers and developers of GEBRA from Hennef.

Today, 150 employees manufacture more than 10,000 vehicle reflectors, which also follow the complex curved body shapes of German premium automobiles - every day.

At the same time, the quality standards for the vehicle parts, which are very visible from the outside, and the demands of the automotive industry are once again growing rapidly. The demands on quality management are also growing.

Manageable effort

"Our QA software is fast, very easy to use and absolutely secure," says managing partner Wolfgang Weber, summing up what is required for a QA system that can also be used successfully in the long term and contribute to the success and growth of a company. The specifications initially provide for the regular periodic taking of samples, their measurement in the range of tenths of a millimeter and the reliable recording and real-time evaluation of the measurement results obtained. All of this should be carried out during ongoing operations, with manageable effort and by as many employees as possible. The IT service provider BINSERV from Königswinter installs the in-house BINForce Pro QS for this purpose, which can be easily and individually adapted to the production and quality processes on site. The user is comfortably guided through the process via touchscreen and graphically designed user interface. The data is already validated during the measuring process. If a measured value is outside the specified tolerances, the employee can be prompted to take another measurement. If the deviation is confirmed, the current manufacturing process is immediately intervened.

Any number of users - anywhere in the world

The QA software is web-based. This means that any number of users at any number of measuring points and locations can enter data and evaluate it in real time. GEBRA only has to do without expensive servers at all locations and costly licenses. The results are transmitted in encrypted form via the Internet to a central computer. So it doesn't matter whether the input is made by one of the more than 300 employees in Germany or at the company's Chinese location.

Weber describes this software structure as "likeable". Also because it allows flexible expansion with additional functions at any time and thus adapts to the development of the company and new demands on quality management, "without having to start from scratch again," Weber explains his motivation to now make quality data that goes beyond the recording of measured values immediately usable for the daily production process. The mapping, evaluation and presentation of quantitative measurement methods is thus followed by qualitative QA recording.

One result: the seemingly banal beeping of the quality manager's smartphone. It does it all the time - you might think. And yet the special QS ringtone is rather unusual. It announces BINForce Pro QS: The software announces itself independently and actively informs about critical developments in production. The same applies to production control and other key areas of the company. Those responsible can intervene immediately.

And they are optimally equipped for this. Because the QA software calculates costs, compares material consumption with the number of partial quantities that can actually be delivered, and knows and identifies all machines and employees. The data required for this is queried at convenient data entry terminals directly at the production site, and incorrect entries are ruled out thanks to a guided touchscreen workflow.

Fully informed

Even at the customer's site, GEBRA's engineers can now connect to the BINSERV system via laptop if required and contribute to further development with seamless documentation. "Today we have a database and countless output possibilities", Wolfgang Weber summarizes. With a bit of petrol in the blood, a living spirit of innovation and a production process that continues to focus uncompromisingly on precision and quality assurance, it is not just the GEBRA reflector that will continue to shine in the future, but rather the entire company.