Witzenmann GmbH

“Managing flexibility” is the competence benchmark of the Witzenmann Group. Founded in 1854 as a jewellery factory, Heinrich Witzenmann laid the foundation for the metal hose and expansion joint industry with his invention of the metal hose in in 1885.

After more than 125 years, the Witzenmann Group is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of flexible, metallic elements such as metal hoses, expansion joints, metal bellows and vehicle parts. More than 3,700 employees generated sales of around 520 million euros in 2014.

With the broadest product range of the entire industry worldwide, Witzenmann offers solutions for vibration decoupling, expansion absorption in piping, flexible assembly, and the conducting of media. As a development partner of customers in the automotive industry, technical building equipment industry, and many other markets all the way to aerospace, Witzenmann has its own machine/tool and prototype construction as well as comprehensive testing and inspection equipment.

A key factor in the cooperation with customers is the technical advice provided by the sales and application engineers on site as well as by the competence centre at the headquarters in Pforzheim (Germany). Here, a pool of experienced and creative engineers works on product developments, process developments and new applications.

As an international group consisting of 23 companies spread over Europe, America and Asia, Witzenmann stands for high quality in the most important markets – worldwide.

Since the end of the 1990s, Witzenmann GmbH in Pforzheim, the parent company of the Witzenmann Group, had been using the data exchange manager of a well-known provider in conjunction with a DAXware OFTP data exchange frontend from HÜNGSBERG GmbH in the engineering area.

In 2012 the by then outdated DAXware was replaced by its successor solution engDAX, amongst other things to satisfy the already acute demand for data transfer via OFTP2. On this occasion the IT employee Mr. Jürgen Rausch, who is responsible for the data exchange system at Witzenmann, immediately developed a liking for the engDAX system, as it corresponded to his idea of a practical, secure and intuitively operable solution. Henceforth a plan was born to check whether the above-mentioned data exchange manager could be completely replaced by using engDAX.

One year later the starting signal for the project was given: Mr. Rausch had documented the existing data exchange processes in a comprehensive catalogue of requirements and handed it over to HÜNGSBERG. Just one week later, HÜNGSBERG presented an initial concrete solution based on the standard functions of engDAX. One month later a concept for the connection to the conversion service of the then current provider was established. Due to the flexible design of engDAX it was completed without the need for any special developments.

After this first milestone was reached it went into the offer phase with the agreement to budget the project for 2014. Another milestone was reached in 2014 with the verification of the database of the data exchange manager and the concept development for the transfer of the master data, before it came to the approval of the specification sheet and the subsequent order in October. In November, the conversion work began with the aim of completing it by January 31, 2015.

The conversion work began in January 2015 with some preparatory activities via remote maintenance, which also included briefings for the administration, so that the customer could already familiarise himself with the system and thereby be able to actively support the conversion. At an on-site appointment in Pforzheim on 30.01.2015, final activities were carried out and the system finally went live as scheduled, the following Monday. Due to the excellent planning and preparation, the new engDAX solution fulfilled all expectations from the very beginning. The transition took place seamlessly without any downtimes in system availability.

Users now have a streamlined and easy-to-use system. Just as easily and, above all, quickly, tasks such as the creation of new ODETTE connections can now be carried out without external support. Within the framework of a call-off order concluded with HÜNGSBERG GmbH, which supplements the maintenance contract, the HÜNGSBERG service team can be commissioned without formalities if any additional work* is required.

(* activities not included in the maintenance contract)