Integrated into the US company Federal Mogul in 1999, Nuremberg Aluminum Works (Nüral) with its ca. 1000 employees represents one of the largest employees in Nuremberg’s automotive manufacturing sector. As part of a company active worldwide, Federal Mogul Nuremberg GMBH specializes in the manufacturing of aluminum pistons for automotive engines. The company’s main production emphasis is on manufacturing high-quality pistons for Diesel passenger car engines. The largest percentage of its yearly production volume of ca. 9 million pistons is delivered to manufacturers of renowned German automobiles. Additionally, development of pistons for the company in Nuremberg and for the piston division of the worldwide acting company takes place in an adjacent technology center also part of Federal Mogul/Nüral.
In addition to manufacturing aluminum pistons, the state-of-the-art production halls of the 80-year old company are also used to assemble the necessary piston accessories, such as piston rings, sockets and piston pins. The products leave the plant as a complete system which can then be assembled into an engine for the final customer.
The company’s business strategy is based on goal-oriented optimization of processes so as to attain continuing improvement in product quality. In order to secure the high demands on product quality, processes are guided by a complex quality concept utilizing a variety of different inspections.
In order to efficiently plan and use results of inspections to improve quality, the company decided in 1986 to implement a computer-based quality assurance system. At this time, it was already decided that quality-related topics, such as gauge management or statistical processing control (SPC) would be integrated into the system successively.
When the IT-landscape changed in the 90s, computer-enabled possibilities and demands on CAQ-systems to implement these possibilities arose simultaneously. In 1999 the performance ability of the then existing system running on Unix had reached its limit and the company decided to redesign its entire CAQ –system. After exhaustive research and performance comparisons the company decided to acquire CAQ AG Factory Systems’s software and continues to employs this system to the present day.
Due to the integration of the Nuremberg piston facility into an initially European-wide and later world-wide operating company, new demands emerged for quality management and its corresponding tasks. There was therefore an effort in progress to develop a QM-Intranet solution which would enable reporting and subsequent evaluation of quality data via an FTP-server among participating company subsidiaries. This would result in a group-wide improvement in benchmarks and goal-oriented quality improvement programs.
Through fruitful conversations with CAQ AG Factory Systems representatives, Federal Mogul’s Nuremburg subsidiary discovered that CAQ AG Factory Systems’s successful software offered optimal prerequisites for the so-called back-end implementation. Federal Mogul representatives decided to use CAQ AG Factory Systems’s quality-related document management software, QBD.Net®, as a communication medium which was being fed by local Federal Mogul Nuremburg GmbH data. Even though the existing CAQ-platform is still in operation in the background, the CAQ AG Factory Systems software represents the basis of Federal Mogul’s comprehensive quality assurance system.
If an employee recalls quality data, CAQ AG Factory Systems software generates the processes involved and can display the results in several different languages via its Intranet system.
When it comes to quality-related matters, Federal Mogul Nuremburg GmbH is more than satisfied with its software choice as well as the additionally developed back-end implementation. The QM- supervisor at FM Nuremburg notes: “We use a comprehensive number of CAQ AG Factory Systems software products. When we decided to use CAQ AG Factory Systems’s programs there were only few software companies that offered seamless integration into an existing IT-system. CAQ AG Factory Systems was truly a maverick in this field.” And this possibility for integration into an existing SAP®-system, including the SPC-gauging stations already in operation, prompted Federal Mogul’s enthusiastic support for implementing CAQ AG Factory Systems’s software, since this ability proved the software’s broad application range and flexibility.
Renowned customers especially demanding in the area of quality and environmental management describe their success stories and serve as guarantors and references for software that yields high performance and is reliable and fair.
From mid-size companies to multi-national corporations, CAQ AG develops innovative, integrated software solutions that satisfy the highest demands and meet all requirements of quality management.
Furthermore, CAQ AG software supports all quality-related processes pertaining to any value added chain, production companies, and service providers. We attach special importance to compliance with standards as well as 100% release-capability of all of our software solutions without any restrictions – all this while retaining the maximum degree of customization to satisfy customer-specific demands.
Although CAQ AG software solutions are installed on thousands of systems worldwide, we guarantee that you can update your version automatically, no matter how many updates and upgrades you have installed previously. All upgrades function with minimum servicing time and effort onsite. Updates install automatically without requiring you to consult or involve our service staff. Updates neither change nor impede any customer-specific configurations. This principle ensures the full value of your investments.
In all of our efforts our most important goal is not just to satisfy you, but instead to thrill you! One thing is essential to realizing this goal – and we are very proud of our accomplishments on this front: We have a highly motivated, engaged, and competent team in which and with which working is fun!
It is a matter of course for us here at CAQ AG that our employees in development, support, customer service, sales, and management, in addition to having university degrees as well as practical experience, have completed the training courses for “Quality Manager GFQ-IHK” or “Quality Assistant GFQ-IHK” and stay up-to-date by continuously completing training programs.
