#TheStrategicProcess #Application

(Mr.David Bertrán from Kuadrotek (right) and Mr. José Carlos Álvarez Tobar from Weidmüller (left) signing the cooperation contract)

Let me come here with one practical application of #TheStrategicProcess that can help us to better understand how these processes are working in real life.

Company: Weidmüller Interface GmbH & Co. KG with head quarters located in Detmold (Germany) and Global Application Centre (GAC) for renewable energy located at Weidmüller, S.A. in Barcelona (Spain).

Case: the company strategy defined the development of the renewable energy (especially photovoltaic) as worldwide key market and set high level targets for the next years.

Status: the company started the activities in the photovoltaic segment five years ago in Spain with the booming of the market in this country, acquiring the company rapidly a high level of know how especially in combiner boxes and monitoring systems. The production of combiner boxes was adequate for the Spanish and South European countries but not for the worldwide market. It was necessary to find the right process to produce 10 times more units of combiner boxes with a high quality performance adequate to the Japanese market and this all in six months.

Solution: the company defined a working team for #TheStrategicProcess revising all the processes steps from the definition, design and development of combiner boxes till the production based on external suppliers with semi automatic processes. It was necessary at the end to modify conveniently the company structure, introducing two main changes: first one was the figure of "Operations" covering Purchasing, MRP (Material Replenishment Planner), Production and Quality. Second one was the figure of "Industrialization" a figure working between the GAC (Design and Development) and the "Operations".

This was necessary to pass from a semi automatic production to a high automatic production in order to cover the mass production planned for the future. In addition, the Quality Process was strongly documented and defined with three inspection levels in order to improve quality ratios and adequate it to the demanding Japanese market.

This complex process involved the Division AS / OEM in Germany, people from Operations Germany and big part of the Management in Weidmüller, S.A. (Barcelona).

Between couples of different solution the company selected the cooperation with a high qualified partner for the mass production. Finally was selected the company Kuadrotek (Grupo Elektra) where the company installed in strongly cooperation with the partner two high automatic production lines capable to manufacturing combiner boxes with and without monitoring systems.

The exceptional team working spirit, the communication between all people implicated in the process, the good relationship with the partner selected and especially the passion for doing #TheStrategicProcess coming to real life were the main factors for the success.

(Partial view of one of the assembly lines for monitoring combiner boxes at Kuadrotek)