The School of Engineering and Architecture of Fribourg chooses TOPP TI to bring Lean innovation to it’s canton-wide Industry 4.0 digital transformation program. In this case study we recall 2-years of workshops, brainstorming and multinational/multicultural collaboration to leverage complementary skill sets and synergies among our dynamic group of collaborators to bring solutions to many of the challenges small and mid-size manufacturers face as topics such as digital transformation and industry 4.0 become more and more relavant to business survival.

1. Architecting Industry 4.0
on quality, tradition and
know-how
Case Study
The School of Engineering and Architecture
of Fribourg chooses TOPP TI to bring Lean
innovation to it’s canton-wide Industry 4.0
digital transformation program

2. Overview
There are over 300,000 small and
medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in
Switzerland belonging to over 250
trade associations. With respect to
other countries, the percentage of
foreign-generated sales revenue to
total sales by Swiss SMEs is one of
the highest in the world
demanding that even the smallest
companies adopt global mindsets
to remain competitive.
Looking to support local
manufacturers and having Industry
4.0 and digital transformation on
the top of its agenda, the
Chamber of Commerce of
Fribourg chose TOPP TI to partner
with an elite team of Swiss
engineers to build a software
solution giving manufacturers
visibility into the many opportunities
in innovation available in the
market and the confidence they
need to act.

3. Introduction
Since 2017, TOPP TI has been supporting an
elite team of engineers from the School of
Architecture & Engineering of Fribourg
(www.heia-fr.ch) in a joint Lean Six Sigma -
Industry 4.0 project sponsored by the
Fribourg Chamber of Commerce
High level objective:
to give local manufacturers 360° visibility into
the new technology and managerial
doctrines available in the global
marketplace together with a robust
scientific approach supported by a software
solution to perform qualitative and
quantitative analysis of IT and technology
investment opportunities
Sponsorship: The Chamber of
Commerce of Fribourg
Program Management: The
School of Architecture and
Engineering of Fribourg
Product Development Partner:
TOPP Tactical Intelligence Ltd.

4. The participants
The project pilot named
‘Connect 4.1’ had the objective
to offer the Canton of Fribourg a
new means to assess
opportunities in innovation to
remain competitive.
The test pilot included the build
of a unique quality assessment
software platform allowing for a
series of audits to be conducted
across
6 initial industrial partners.
Led by the Professor Raymond
Riess, his engineering team from
the University and supported by
the TOPP TI Development team,
over the course of 2018 & 2019
the business solution was finalised
and successfully installed into
manufacturing operations giving
deep visibility into areas of
business including customer
service, leadership &
management, staff engagement
and technology
German company that manufactures
components for electrical connections and
electronic components for decentralized
automation. (wago.com)
ROMAG specialises in the development and
manufacture of screens for overflow
structures.
Polytype Converting is a global supplier of
coating technology and coating
equipment for the surface finishing of a
wide variety of substrates.
At the forefront in the development of milling
processes as well as the manufacturing of
premium quality mills for renowned, industry-
leading clientele active in the pharmaceutical,
fine chemical, and food sectors since 1946.
Bulle-based family-run leader in metal
construction and high-tech facades with
more than 300 employees
Founded in 1927 as a public limited company,
Cremo is a Swiss company that manufactures
and markets high quality dairy products in a
consistent and sustainable way in Switzerland
and around the world.
wago.com
romag.com
polytype-converting.com
frewitt.com
sottas.ch
cremo.ch

5. The core project team
From left-to-right: Vivien Charrey, Richard Pasquier,
Raymond Riess, Nicolas Rouve, Andrew Lenti
Approaching Industry 4.0 on tradition and know-how
Key product requirements
Build a cloud-based business platform software solution
allowing small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) to be able
to autonomously:
I. Assess:
1. the talent and leadership profiles of their management
team using new standards of leadership excellence
2. the level of quality and delivery efficiency of their value
proposition
3. the general perception of service delivery from a
‘voice-of-the-customer’ view
4. the current usage of technology and machinery and
the leadership team’s vision into where breakthrough
opportunities in technology investment exist
II. Act on
1. process re-engineering activities leveraging know-how
from process experts
2. re-training opportunities where knowledge gaps in
market trends and best practices cause uncertainty
3. re-tooling and technology investment opportunities
available in the market from new Industry 4.0 technology
Core principles
• Know how-centric
• Action-driven
• User friendly
• Multi-lingual
• ‘Lean-friendly’
• Respect people

6. CEM –Customer experience strategy
4 areas of concentration
The logic of Connect 4.1 includes observing the industrial partner under the following 4 lenses
Technologies industrie 4.0
Management 4.0
• Identify strengths and weaknesses
of the customer relationship
• Optimize and strengthen its
Marketing Positioning. Increase
and
• Understand and anticipate current
and future customer expectations
• Identify the client's "breads" (pain)
and provide satisfactory answers
• Federate teams based on
technological synergies across the
company
• Discover new technology
• Increase customer expectations
based on new products and services
resulting from new technology
• Create a current-to-target
enhancement plan considering
product, production, logistics and
organisation
• Observe competitor positioning and
identify alarm signals
• Define targets to reach by subject
• Act swiftly to engage in new
market opportunities aimed at
increasing market share
• Review key milestones in the
Industry 3.0 to Industry 4.0
transition and put an action plan in
place to invest in organisational,
methodological and technological
innovation opportunities
• Visualize B2B Benchmarks to
Identify strengths, weaknesses and
Best-in-Class in trade opportunities
• Build collective intelligence by
leveraging employee talent
• Build a ‘Liberated Enterprise’
investing in R&D, increasing
employee engagement and
promoting creativity, learning and
innovation
• Prepare for future generations by
attracting generations Z and Alpha
and adapt management to use
their talents

7. Building something new
The workflow logic used to build, test and release in
production was supported by a 5-STEP Kanban agreed first
among the core project team members and then together
with the end users from the 6 manufacturing companies
Vivien Charrey facilitates a brainstorm
session at the Fribourg Chamber of
Commerce to explain how product
development and testing will be
conducted during the test pilot

8. A Lean culture built on
complementary skill sets
Throughout the course of the product build phase, a wide
variety of professional relationships were established
allowing for the deep concentration necessary to focus on
quality product development.
Under the guidance of Professor Riess, the extended team
took queues to articulate the business requirements
provided by the engineers with the operational feedback
from the manufacturing partners to ultimately leverage the
technical and creative abilities of the TOPP TI Product Team.
Professor Riess explains the weighted
Hoshin Kanri strategy deployment logic
Lean green belt and black belt trophies
await to be awarded to Lean trainees
The shop floor of the HEIA displaying
‘works-in-progress’ from local engineers
Chamber of Commerce Fribourg - The Connect 4.1 Team consisting of local manufacturing business leaders,
engineers from the Fribourg School of Architecture and Engineering (HEIA) and our own Vivien Charrey

9. And finally, the results…….

10. The result
In mid 2019, the fruits of almost 2-years of
workshops was effectively brought to
the manufacturing floor.
The final solution leverages and
enhances our cloud-based continuous
improvement solution PRESTO Digital
Enterprise, a collection of best-of-breed
tools currently used by small & mid-sized
companies for operational excellence
support in areas of strategy, KPI, issue
and change management.
As the development phase officially
closed, the test pilot started strong with
the product installation across the 6
industrial participating partners.
In its first months, the product was used
by a limited group of quality assurance
personnel and business leaders together
with the team University Engineers.
It is foreseen that in the second quarter
of 2020, the user group will expand to
include additional subject matter
experts from the shop floor to assist in the
development of the long-term usage
model.
The checklist manager
Reporting at 360°
Multi-format and
printable for easy shop
floor usage. Customisable
layout to accommodate
lengthy checklists and
verification methodology.
A wide variety of reporting including
radar, spider and polar charts in
easy-to-read and customizable
formats

11. The audit dashboard
All your audit checklists, all in one place
Filter by:
1. Product type / value chain
2. Client segment
3. Assigned audit session
4. Favourites
5. Date
6. Pass / fail
Helicopter view
to all your audits

12. Corrective action reporting
TASK/PROJECT
MANAGEMENT MADE
EASY
Capture, assign,
analyse and track
until completion all
corrective actions
identified throughout
the course of your
audits to ensure
follow-through and
sense-of-urgency
discipline

13. Observation tracking
BEFORE – AFTER
Capture ‘before’ and
‘after’ scenarios to
ensure that corrective
actions and
recommendations
are being
implemented
correctly

14. The VDMA toolbox
Maturity assessment and change
management built on the core
principles of Lean and the tool kit
of the Industrie 4.0
implementation guideline
recently published by the
German Engineering Federation
(VDMA) offering your company a
more scientific approach to
digital transformation
5-step to Industrie 4.0 toolkit giving
your process owners visibility into
a rich archive with the latest
technology available in the
market and its impact on the 6
core areas of manufacturing.
As you complete your analysis,
investment opportunities will
present themselves as well as
areas where external technical
consultation could be beneficial
in the re-skilling of your staff
The VDMA toolbox
Intra-logistics logistics production product organisation security
Industry 4.0
Bonus

15. A rich archive of checklists
& supporting reports
To allow you to start immediately, PRESTO offers a
wide variety of reporting together with some of
the most up-to-date audit checklists allowing your
team to be up-and-running in just a few minutes
No
Programming
Required!
Some pre-ready checklists
• Managerial assessments
• Customer experience
• Technology assessments
• ISO
• Data privacy
• Risk and safety assessments
• Intrinsic risk assessments
• RPA (robotics process automation)
• 5S
• VDMA toolbox
• Standard work audits
• Lean audits
& much more

16. Teach 5S in
minutes, sustain it for
years to come
Teaching the principles of
5S has never been easier!
Articulate quality control
into a business-as-usual
discipline at the team
level and roll it all up to
get a real time 360°
company view.
5S for
the office
also included!

17. Touchpoints & informational handoffs
captured and analysed at their most granular level
Containing a toolbox with a wide set of ‘Lean friendly’ widgets, PRESTO offers your business analysts
a quick and easy means to perform focused deep dive exercises to deliver the right level of details
required to give confidence to your decision makers responsible for corrective action prioritisation

18. Teach your team to identify,
analyse and propose where
investing in strengthening weak
controls will offer long-term value in
data security
Risk and control self-assessments
performed by those who know your business best

19. As your team leads validate the
costs and benefits associated
with the opportunities which
arrive on PRESTO’s dashboard,
your leadership team will have
more confidence in accelerating
tactical decision making to
‘cultivate’ low hanging fruits
offering a broader vision into the
long-term investments required
to achieve corporate
breakthrough goals
Top-down Governance,
bottom-up validation
Ideas and waste reduction opportunities
at your fingertips

20. Conclusions &
next steps
To date the collaboration has
proven to be an experience
characterised by rich learning
supported by the
complementary skills sets and
know-how brought from the
diverse backgrounds of the
Engineers, the manufactures
and our business consultants
and product developers.
With our solution in the live
environment since late 2018, a
series of publications will begin
to be released from each
manufacturer starting in 2020.
For more information on this
project, please visit our news
page at toppti.com/news

22. TOPP Tactical Intelligence, Ltd.
27 Old Gloucester Street, London
WC1N 3AX
www.toppti.com
info@toppti.com
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