Conzella Präzisionswerkzeuge GmbH nearly cut its production lead times in half after replacing paper-based planning with a real time manufacturing execution system built on Ninox. For a company that plans out around 1,700 work sequences every month, that's not a small win, it's a game changer for the entire shop floor.
Conzella has been making precision drill bits, centering cones, centering tips, and specialty tools out of Albstadt for nearly a century. The family-owned business was one of the first in Germany to manufacture rotating centering tips, and today it serves more than a thousand customers, including original equipment manufacturers among major machine builders and tool distributors, both at home and abroad. With that kind of reputation on the line, precision isn't just a product feature, it's the whole business.
Paper planning, real time problems
For years, though, planning ran on paper, and paper has a way of falling out of date fast. Scheduling started in the connected ERP system, then production orders got printed out so staff could manually plan the sequence for each workstation, machine, and team member. The trouble was that once those orders hit paper, they were stuck. Any change in delivery dates, material shortages, delays from outside processing partners, or a machine or employee suddenly going offline meant the printed schedule was already out of step with reality. Teams ended up building extra planning lists in Excel just to keep up, which only added more room for error and burned through hours that could have gone elsewhere. Constantly updating the ERP system by hand wasn't realistic either, the effort simply didn't add up.
Management decided it was time to explore something built for real time change instead of playing catch up after the fact. The requirements were clear: real time synchronization with the existing ERP system and automation of the processes that mattered most. Working with Ninox Premium Solution Partner KMU Cloud Software GmbH, Conzella rolled out Ninox Smart MES 365, a manufacturing execution system designed to digitize production and make the entire value chain more productive. In practical terms, an MES gives a company a digital mirror of its production floor, covering order planning and control, sequencing across machines, data capture, and material management. It acts as the connective tissue between the ERP system and the shop floor itself.
The new system connects to the DocuWare document management system, streamlines processes across the board, and was tailored specifically to fit a small or midsize manufacturer like Conzella rather than forcing the company into a one size fits all mold.
Real time sync, zero reprinting
Manual planning is now a thing of the past. Production order data flows from the ERP system to Ninox in real time, and the production planning team handles release and sequencing for each machine and workstation directly. If the order of operations needs to shift, it happens right there on the planning board, no reprinting required. The staff order dashboard automatically assigns jobs to the right workstation and employee, and the MES time management built into Ninox makes sure every bit of production data gets reported back to the ERP system without any gaps.
As Melanie Schink, Geschäftsführerin (Managing Director) of Conzella, puts it: "With the Ninox MES solution we were able to nearly cut our production lead times in half."
For Conzella, it came down to three things working together: a digital solution that fit the way the shop floor operates, a system that checked every box on the requirements list, and an implementation that didn't break the bank. Together, they turned a paper heavy, error prone process into one the whole team can rely on.
