One-source planning and implementation of safe-investment facilities
Building, expanding and optimizing sustainable factories – io-consultants provides the full service chain from planning to implementation, with the consistent use of Lean Production and Operational Excellence methods. Our experienced team of experts will support you across all industries, manufacturers and disciplines.
Topmost reliability for quality, schedules and costs – ensured by io‑consultants’ one-source factory design services.
When planning new production facilities and plant structures, companies are faced with high investments, accompanied by high risks for operational business and corporate development targets. With io-consultants at your side as an experienced and professional partner, you can rest assured of all-round project success.
We have been providing customers across the world with holistic solutions for functional industrial planning, for more than 60 years. Today, you can benefit from our unique, long-time specialization in planning and implementing factories and logistics centres. We assist companies with site concepts, production and logistics design, and process optimization in complex production networks. Always with convincing results, i.e. future-proof facilities in line with the defined schedule and budget.
References
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Efficient, one-source solutions
io-consultants combines expertise from all the relevant disciplines of factory design
Our teams of experts work hand-in-hand towards efficient and sustainable project success. And our customers benefit from our in-house expertise in all associated, relevant disciplines and their interrelations – for professional and tailor-made solutions.
Our areas of expertise:
- Facilities and production planning
- Architecture and construction supervision
- SAP/IT consulting
- Logistics and distribution
- Pharmaceuticals and biotechnology
- Food processing
io consultants’ planning services are categorized into three main groups:
- Raising client satisfaction, meeting growing demands and their complexity within the scope of the available resources and capacities
- Reorganization of established plant structures
- Increasing flexibility within the existing production network
- Value stream analysis and optimization
- Introduction and implementation of LEAN methods
- Determination of expansion needs; estimation of costs and timescale for planning and implementation
- Best possible integration of capacity expansions into the existing production network
- Conceptualization, planning and implementation of factory expansions
- Determination of key data; estimation of costs and timescale for the new facilities
- Site selection
- Best possible integration of the new site into the existing production network / planning of seamless relocation without production downtimes
How we work
Common to all planning projects is that io-consultants follows a structured sequence of events, and uses methods and modules appropriate for each individual situation:
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1. Strategy development
- Analysis of the business environment and important premises (e.g. with regard to market, competition, technological developments)
- Development of strategies for the production network
- Derivation of the factory and project objectives from the company objectives (e.g. with regard to costs, quality, flexibility, time) and identification of opportunities for improvement
- Development of key performance indicator systems for project management and later factory operation
- Conducting preliminary studies and estimating time frame and investment budget
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2. Concept design
- Data collection and analysis as well as assessment of existing factories and value streams
- Development of an effective basis for planning and validation of existing concepts
- Conception of different variants
- Design of target value stream and specification of manufacturing processes
- Design of manufacturing and logistics systems
- Dimensioning of equipment and machinery, functional areas and buildings
- Development of ideal and real layouts
- Integration into plant structures, development of building concepts and cost estimates
- Evaluation of different variants and preparation of proposal documents
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3. Detailed design
- Detailed planning of the layout with equipment arrangement
- Integration in building design with integration of material handling technologies
- Validation of the material flow by simulation
- Ergonomic workplace design
- Preparation of permit applications e.g. BImSchG
- Preparation of tender documents
- Supplier selection and bid evaluation
- Support for supplier awarding
- Planning of fabrication, assembly and picking processes
- Relocation planning
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4. Implementation support
- Approval of execution plans
- Coordination of the various suppliers and contractors
- Construction and installation management
- Continuous tracking of budget and time schedules
- Implementation monitoring and continuous quality assurance
- Performance of interim / functional tests and monitoring of trial operation
- Pre- and final approval of systems
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5. Start-up management and optimization
- Start-up and ramp-up support and process stabilization
- Introduction of shop floor management and lean production systems to establish a continuous improvement process
- Planning and implementation of modern maintenance concepts such as Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)
- Shopfloor trainings and qualification of employees
- Optimization of business processes and process organization
- Adjustments to changed framework conditions and objectives
Efficient and individual factory design with io-consultants
Value stream analysis is at the core of all optimization measures in a production environment and therefore plays a key role in sustainable strategic improvement. This process enables us to record the existing material and information flows transparently with standard symbols and to then reliably uncover optimization potential and selectively initiate the relevant measures. At the same time, value stream design is an indispensable tool for circumventing potential weak points in new developments and extensions, right from the start.
An overview of value stream analysis and value stream design services
- Identification of representative product families
- Determination of customer takt time
- Establishing the status quo
- Creation of a value stream design
- Prioritization of procedural errors
- Implementation of improvement projects
- Standardization of shop floor management
The focus of our work in shop floor management lies on making improvements systematically and on a daily basis. The key objectives are to stabilise production and, moreover, to reliably reduce availability losses. We apply a variety of methods to achieve these goals and pay special attention to ensuring the efficiency of initiated countermeasures.
io-consultants supports sustainable and long-term optimizations in shop floor management with target-oriented trainings and tools.
An overview of shop floor management with io-consultants:
- OEE and output logs
- Identification of losses
- Creation of Pareto charts
- Problem-solving sheet
- Chart of measures (PDCA logics) and OPL
- Effectiveness monitoring
60 years
of experience
8 locations
worldwide
More than 8.000
successful projects
More than 250
staff worldwide
Other services and industries you may be interested in
As a lead consultant, we provide comprehensive services across a variety of disciplines – production, logistics, architecture and IT – and will oversee each stage of your project from the beginning right through to standard operations.