Miebach develops a digital twin to optimize the material flow of Sonae Arauco in Linares

Sonae Arauco, one of the world's leading producers of wood-based panels, contacted Miebach Consulting to develop a "digital twin" to assess and study material flow alternatives and planning policies for its factory in Linares (Jaén). This project is part of the process of digital transformation and technological innovation in which the company has been immersed for years, and which has earned it several awards, including the "Best Digital Transformation Enterprise". Sonae Arauco's roadmap towards Industry 4.0 has led the company to consider state-of-the-art solutions that allow it to simulate its complex planning and production processes in detail.

Sonae Arauco's production involves large industrial assets and highly complex processes that make it difficult to operate optimally in the various environments that the company's production plants have to deal with. In this context, Sonae Arauco approached Miebach Consulting to jointly address the creation of a "digital twin" for its Linares plant, which would allow it to study planning scenarios and changes in the control logic of the manufacturing processes in order to strategically evaluate them before implementing them in the processes, control logic, and layouts of the plant.

This project was carried out following the Agile methodology, combining Sonae Arauco's sector knowledge with Miebach Consulting's experience and resources, as well as the latest technological tools available in the market. It was developed in three phases:

• Mapping of the current situation: the internal material flows were analyzed, documenting all planning processes and control logic of the factory and developing the simulation of the real situation at the moment.
• Improvement workshops to jointly detect improvement points (quick-wins and long-term improvements).
• Design of the optimal solution: the "digital twin" model was developed with all the improvements proposed, both for plant planning and flow control logic, by means of complex state-of-the-art algorithms.

The "digital twin" developed together with Miebach Consulting has allowed Sonae Arauco to assess and quantify strategic changes, both in planning processes and in material flow processes. Thus, the company now has an advanced digitalization tool that allows accelerating continuous improvement processes in a much more efficient way and assessing in a much more reliable way the global impact that any change in the factory would have.

Sonae Arauco is one of the world's leading producers of wood-based solutions. Based in Spain - where it has industrial operations in Cuéllar, Linares and Valladolid - the company is truly committed to corporate sustainability and to the creation of economic, environmental and social value in the regions where it operates. It currently has 3,000 employees of 25 nationalities and 23 industrial and commercial units in 9 countries.