Dedicated to the finish

Mirka Ltd is a world leader in surface finishing technology and offers a broad range of groundbreaking sanding solutions for the surface finishing and precision industry. Mirka is a globally expanding company with 18 subsidiaries located in Europe, Middle East, North and South America as well as Asia. Headquarters and production are located in Finland. More than 97% of products are exported and sold in over 100 countries.

Mirka’s company-wide digital transformation started with sales, marketing, and commerce, and now was shifting onto multi-site manufacturing operations. Mirka required comprehensive evaluation of their manufacturing IT infrastructure and the capabilities of their tailored ERP’s (main operating system in manufacturing) in supporting their day-to-day operational performance and achieving Mirka’s business targets currently and moving forward. Mirka's aspiration was to prepare for industry evolution by creating an environment for Mirka 4.0, which in turn would support other digital transformation initiatives. IDEAL GRP consulted Mirka in identifying the optimal way forward.

Objective approach - open for supplier and system choice

Consultation’s objectives were defined to support Mirka’s Manufacturing IT alignment initiative:

• To solve system obstacles affecting manufacturing performance
• To fix or reduce issues in the manufacturing process and data management
• To define scalable manufacturing IT architecture to support Mirka 4.0
• To identify the development roadmap and monetarize digitalization value for an initiative

IDEAL GRP formed a high-level overview of the current situation by interviewing manufacturing operations personnel and the relevant stakeholders, auditing operational work and manufacturing control on the shop floor. By understanding the current state and improvement potential, manufacturing and business needs were identified. This knowledge of the actual development requirements was the foundation for the recommendations for forming Mirka’s digital vision. Finally, concrete development paths were identified for developing Mirka’s processes and technology towards the digital vision.

The consultation assignment was carried out through an objective approach to Mirka’s manufacturing operations, based on the ISA-95 framework. The recommendations were open for supplier and system choice.

The consultation deliverables presented findings and proposals to develop the operational processes and the manufacturing IT to achieve Mirka’s objectives and the actual benefits of these actions. The potential was estimated to positively impact capacity and quality on the shop-floor, and transparency through the order-delivery process, among other benefits. However, the proposed improvements and solution ramp-ups should be done in controlled steps according to a roadmap and evaluate the progress between every implementation in case the development direction needs to be adjusted.

Mirka valued collaboration with IDEAL GRP:

“The consultation work done by IDEAL GRP resulted in a valuable framework, highly supporting the strategic roadmap and digitalization plan for our manufacturing and order-delivery processes. IDEAL GRP brought strong professional knowledge about industrial processes and the latest technologies, combined with great cooperation skills through a positive mindset. Therefore, I would highly recommend IDEAL GRP to other manufacturing companies that have a need to review their processes and technologies towards the Industry 4.0 era”

-          Annika Peltola, Digitalization Development Manager

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Contact us if you would like to hear more about how we could help you grow your business! Our consultants support you in improving manufacturing engineering, manufacturing operations, industrial automation, and plant and process simulation, in identifying digitalization value and Return on Investment (ROI), and in planning digitization initiatives.

IDEAL GRP Manufacturing Consultation Services