IBS AG Receives Customer Orders from Goerg & Schneider GmbH u. Co. KG

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- Order for a software solution comprising quality (LIMS) and production (ODA) management

- Implementation to lead to an improved flow of information, increased productivity and defect avoidance

- ROI target within one year

Hoehr-Grenzhausen, 23rd August 2011: Goerg & Schneider GmbH u. Co. KG has been in the business of trading and extracting clays, chamottes and ceramic materials since 1924. Customers of Goerg & Schneider can be found in all areas of the ceramics industry. Over 50 per cent of the company’s exported products are scattered across more than 20 countries, predominantly in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Goerg & Schneider markets approximately 500,000 tons of ceramic clays, raw chamottes, raw kaolin and ready-to-use ceramic materials.

The Goerg & Schneider corporate policy focuses, inter alia, on the consistent high quality of its product range. In order to fulfil this quality policy, the company introduced a quality management system in accordance with DIN EN ISO 9001 in 1996 and this was adapted to conform with DIN ES ISO 9001:2000 in 2002. Now, in 2011, Goerg & Schneider has opted for the implementation of a quality management software solution.

"At Goerg & Schneider, quality assurance begins with the exploration of deposits. Exploitable deposits are pegged out by means of core drilling. Strata profiles in a system of coordinates with a maximum of 50m distance between the drill holes provide information on the quality and quantity of the clay zones. Later sampling at the face serves as production control", explains the company's owner, industrial engineer Hartmut Goerg.

"Quality testing and assessment are performed continuously during the processing of the different products, on the basis of representative samples, taken directly from the material flow, largely by means of automatic samplers and sample dividers. The essential parameters of the raw material specification sheets are defined in accordance with DIN regulations, the recommendations of the German Ceramic Society (DKG) and customer-specific agreements. Quality management is carried out in our central laboratory, supported by IBS AG's Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS)", continues Mr. Goerg.

"With Goerg & Schneider we have a new customer within close proximity - from the Westerwald region - and we are particularly delighted about that", says Volker Schwickert, Executive Vice President and Director of Sales and Marketing at IBS, commenting on the customer order.

“LIMS offers Goerg & Schneider a system for the efficient support of each of the company's laboratory requirements, enabling, for example, the execution of raw material checks, stability analyses and the examination of customer tolerances.
A subsequent order incorporates the implementation of software-based operational data acquisition (ODA). ODA offers full transparency of all detailed processes in the company's operations in terms of the applied resources and degree of utilisation. This leads to an optimisation of the production processes and thus also cost reduction. The running production process is continuously monitored and documented. Our software solution will lead to even greater process transparency at Goerg & Schneider and thus further increase customer satisfaction. Goerg & Schneider's current quality certification also ensures the company a high degree of credibility”, explains Volker Schwickert.

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