GERMANY - With around 14,000 employees and five locations, China's largest kitchen and furniture manufacturer Oppein, based in Guangzhou, is entrusting Homag with the implementation of its Industry 4.0 strategy.

Oppein currently produces high-quality kitchens as well as bathroom and home furniture on around 1700 Homag machines. So far, the machines and systems installed are designed primarily for series production. In recent years, however, Oppein has starting investing heavily in batch size 1 production to meet the increasing demands for customer-specific furniture. Oppein now wants to take the next big step and enter the world of networked furniture production. To achieve this, the company is optimizing its logistical processes and automating production.

Homag set up its own separate project, paid a number of visits to the customer, analyzed production and worked out options for successfully implementing Oppein’s Industry 4.0 strategy. Oppein was impressed with these initial results as well as the way in which all options were given equal consideration, and commissioned Homag to develop more detailed solutions.

Homag presented these proposed solutions to Oppein at this year's Ligna in Hanover, resulting in Oppein’s decision of entrusting Homag with the implementation of its Industry 4.0 strategy, with Homag acting as a strategic partner for holistic production concepts including solutions for automation, intra-logistics and software.

Founded in 1994, Oppein has grown to become the largest cabinetry manufacturer in Asia. Today, Oppein directly provides jobs to 14,000 employees and boasts a 500,000 square meter manufacturing center that implements a cutting-edge production management system. Oppein’s daily production is of: 1800+ sets of kitchen cabinets, 1200+ wardrobes, 550+ bathroom cabinets, and 800+ interior doors.