Keller & Kalmbach Future Lab founded at Fraunhofer IML

Unterschleissheim, 23. Mai 2019

Keller & Kalmbach establishes an Enterprise Lab at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML to develop innovative solutions to strengthen its role as one of the leading C-parts system suppliers. The focus of the Keller & Kalmbach Future Lab is on improving cooperation with customers and partners along the supply chain and optimizing physical and digital processes with a view to a sustainable and future-proof business model.

Keller & Kalmbach offers intelligent C-parts management for fasteners, fastening technology and other C-parts for various industries. The company designs, installs and operates self-regulating processes for automatic demand generation and delivery. It takes care of customer consulting, supplier search, purchasing, scheduling, warehousing and quality control as well as delivery directly to the respective workstation.

"As a medium-sized family business, we feel a certain obligation not only to implement new developments, but to actively promote them. We would like to help small and medium-sized companies in particular to introduce transparent processes and improve their performance - Industry 4.0 through the back door, so to speak," explains Dr. Florian Seidl, Managing Director of Keller & Kalmbach. "Cooperation with a research institute such as Fraunhofer IML is an important building block in this process," says Seidl.

With the Future Lab at Fraunhofer IML, Keller & Kalmbach wants to further expand its role as one of the leading system suppliers in C-parts management and, in particular, strengthen its future-oriented orientation. The main goal of the lab's work is to develop Keller & Kalmbach-specific solutions for supply chain management and logistics and to adapt data management, processes and structures accordingly. The concepts and solutions are to be developed and evaluated in cooperation with Fraunhofer IML.

In addition to concrete sub-projects, which produce individual (IT) technical and organisational innovations and thus lead Keller & Kalmbach to the business model 2025, the cooperation focuses on cross-sectional topics such as live tracking or innovations along the entire supply chain. For example, the use of new technologies is intended to minimize risks along the sometimes longer logistics chain from Asian countries and to detect impending delays early enough to ensure that the self-regulating processes for automatic demand generation and delivery are not impaired.

"We are very much looking forward to working with Keller & Kalmbach, an innovative company that is already a driver of new technologies in the market," explains Prof. Dr. Michael Henke, head of the institute at Fraunhofer IML. "Especially for medium-sized companies, the development and implementation of automated and in future autonomous processes and corresponding innovative business models is essential in order to remain competitive in the age of digitalization," says Henke.

The following journals report on this press release

MM Logistik, Logistra, Logistik Heute, Pressebox, OpenPR