ZF Friedrichshafen Germany
The ZF Friedrichshafen AG is one of the worldwide biggest automotive suppliers and one of the world's leading companies in the field of driveline and chassis technology. With their headquarters in Friedrichshafen, Germany, they have over 200 production locations in 41 countries with roughly 150.000 employees.
The ZF Friedrichshafen AG has grown strongly through acquisitions in recent years and decades. The different technologies in the plants and cultural diversity needed to be considered to scale a global digitalization initiative and regional initiatives that had already been launched had to be taken into account to create a value-maximizing digital program consisting of local projects and global solutions.
The first step was to analyse ZF’s 220 plants worldwide utilizing the Industrie 4.0 Maturity Index platform. After determining the status quo, we derived tailored roadmaps for the plants as well as overarching roadmaps on BU, Division and Corporate level. Additionally, a set-up of System House 4.0 that coordinates activities across divisions and provides solutions globally was implemented.
The results show that a now close cooperation ensures buy-in from all stakeholders and an efficient roll-out across all plants. Furthermore, the core team can now provide required solutions with high synergy effects.
"System House 4.0 at ZF consolidate competences and resources to push Industrie 4.0 globally.
The unit provides guard rails for standardization and harmonization in digitalizing production and connects business and IT"
Joachim Sprinz
Manager Industrie 4.0 projekts, ZF Friedrichshafen
Synergies across
220 plants identified
> 100 Digital ambassadors
trained
