Determining the added value of precast products with digital solutions

The company Peter Gross Bau, with head office in St. Ingbert in the German federal state of Saarland, has been recognized for around 140 years as an established company along the value-added chain of construction. Peter Gross Bau has made a name for itself in the civil engineering and construction sector, as well as in all additional sectors of building. The family-run business, now in the fourth generation, is deeply rooted in the southwest of Germany, but is also active with construction projects throughout Germany. Peter Gross currently employs a workforce of more than 3,000 and generated, in 2023, around 900 million euros in construction projects.

Focus on integrated precast production

Precast elements are an essential part of the company’s production palette. Peter Gross Bau has been offering a prominent product range since the 1960s. According to the company, more than 40,000 tons of concrete are delivered annually to internal and external construction sites. Experienced engineers and skilled workers transform this concrete to form loadbearing structures, wall elements, architectural concrete and specific special-construction elements.

Digitization is the basis for cost-effective production

“We have committed ourselves to continuity in precast production for many years now. Towards this end, we have aimed for totally integrated systems, especially including IT applications for documenting detailed information on individual products that is readily available at all times. This continuity begins with time management of individual staff to provide specific data on the added value of the individual precast products manufactured in our plant. This integration is possible with products from RIB Software GmbH,” as Marius Klein, responsible for digitization and production management of the precast plant, has fully appreciated.

Marius Klein came from the automotive industry to the construction sector. With this background, he proposed introduction of a new IT system that would eliminate all manual interfaces at Peter Gross Bau. The objective is to enter master data into the IT system only once – and to work on this basis with a high performance system that makes manageable demands on overall maintenance.

Bye-bye data silos: hello Single Source of Truth

In November 2023, Klein and his team started with the MES system from RIB One Prefab, including a fully integrated work station (Smart Station), with integrated laser projection systems (Smart Lasers) on an initial production table. In interaction with RIB One Prefab ERP and RIB 4.0 – both of which are currently also being introduced in the company – a continuous, completely digital production workflow will in future be the result at Peter Gross. According to Marius Klein, the current system for the production process, a monolith that does not allow data transfer to other IT applications, will be gradually replaced by RIB products. “Once and for all, we want to tear down these data silos with the new RIB products,” says the production manager. RIB One Prefab MES turned out to be the optimal application for the start since the master computer can basically run on its own. It enables easy tracking of product quality.

Successful start with RIB One Prefab MES

The previously manual documentation work at the table has already been digitized by touch screens directly at the system. Marius Klein and his team are fully convinced by the two-fold quality checks. In step 1, placement of the embedded parts on the components and on the formwork is continuously checked and documented during ongoing production. This procedure ensures both the accuracy and the correctness of the precast components. In a second step, quality checks can further be visualized and fetched together with work plans at the digital workstations. Another advantage here is mobile assessment of the work plans by means of the One Prefab MES Mobile app. Photo documentation is also possible by tablet with the app.

The next step is scheduled to take place in May of this year with the definition and transfer of all master data to RIB One Prefab ERP. Klein and his team estimate that the program will go live in approx. six months. Implementation of RIB 4.0. will continue to proceed simultaneously. This software will directly integrate such areas as payroll and financial accounting as well as management of the operations of business partners and clients. This procedure will implement the Single Source of Truth architecture desired by the company.

Corporate-specific processes directly docked on via interfaces

“We would like to cover 80% of all processes with RIB One Prefab and RIB 4.0” reveals Klein. The remaining 20%, which are company-specific special solutions, will be coupled via APIs and RIB One Prefab and RIB 4.0, as desired by the production manager. He and his team need especially simple applications, especially for the work in the warehouse, for which reason a specific solution was created. For this as well, RIB One Prefab and RIB 4.0 offer the best prerequisites – and have convinced everyone in the company.

The team of Peter Gross Bau is especially looking forward to the possibility of directly allocating work times for the manufactured precast parts by means of the RIB system. In this way, the parties responsible would like to allocate the costs exactly to the individual project steps, and in this way determine the cost-efficiency of each produced precast part. “An invaluable advantage,” says Marius Klein.

BIM and CO₂ balancing as topics of the future

The digitization strategy followed by Peter Gross Bau is well-considered. For the medium-term future, the company plans to install a continuous BIM process to cover the entire erection planning and to replace the current 2D planning. In this way, for example, laser technology can be put to more efficient use. Marius Klein and his colleagues are also interested in the CO₂ calculator within RIB 4.0, since specific determination of CO₂ balances by use of sustainable cement is also on the agenda as an important topic of the future.

With the RIB software programs the course is already set for all these innovations. “We are curious to see where we will stand in a few years,” concludes Marius Klein. “We have already laid the foundation for all of this with RIB software products”.