Digitalization concept for end-to-end controlled furniture production at PALMBERG
Entering the future of manufacturing with feature-oriented processes
At a glance
Office furniture manufacturer
Schönberg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
607 employees (2025)
Revenue: €124.3 million (2025)
The company
PALMBERG is one of Germany's leading manufacturers of high-quality office furniture and has been synonymous with quality, functionality, and design for decades. Based in Schönberg with additional production sites, the company manufactures furniture that creates modern and ergonomic working environments. The combination of precision craftsmanship and innovative technologies forms the basis for manufacturing that responds to individual customer requirements while ensuring maximum efficiency.
As a medium-sized company with a clear focus on the future, PALMBERG continuously invests in digital solutions to optimize processes and meet the increasing demands of the market.
The challenge
In the wake of steady growth and increasing market dynamics, PALMBERG was faced with the task of further developing its own production and IT structure to make it fit for the future. Increasingly individualized customer requirements, rising cost pressure, and shorter delivery times increased the demand for efficient and flexible manufacturing processes.
Although PALMBERG already has digital support in production, the existing system landscape is increasingly reaching its limits. The system, which handles some ERP tasks, forms the central basis of the logistics and production processes together with applications developed in-house, but can only map the growing variety of variants and the increasing complexity of processes to a limited extent.
Even in the internal IT department, the challenge was noticeable:
Although important modernization steps had already been implemented, there was little room for extensive further development of systems and processes in the demanding day-to-day business. This gave rise to the desire to approach the digitalization of production in a targeted and structured manner – with the aim of making production processes fit for the future and meeting increasing market requirements in the long term.
The solution
In order to strategically prepare for the future orientation of production, PALMBERG decided to develop a digitalization concept. This was to show how processes, systems, and data could interact optimally in the future to make production more efficient and transparent.
Together with abat, a structured approach was defined for this purpose: from analyzing the status quo and evaluating the existing IT landscape to developing a roadmap containing specific recommendations for action and priorities. The result now forms the basis for the gradual further development of production IT and the sustainable digitalization of manufacturing.
The project
The project kicked off with a two-day initial workshop at the two production sites in Schönberg and Rehna. Representatives from all relevant areas of the company took part – from product development, work scheduling, production and quality assurance to IT and management.
The initial focus was on a comprehensive analysis of the current situation: Together, the existing processes in production, the interaction of the systems, and the IT framework conditions were examined. This revealed the market's requirements in terms of flexibility, variety, and speed, and where the current system architecture reaches its limits.
On this basis, the project team evaluated the identified topics according to their relevance and readiness for implementation.
In doing so, specific areas of focus were identified in which the central requirements for a modern manufacturing execution system (MES) were considered. Early on, it became clear that the data basis from order entry to the plant was a key factor for all further digitization steps. Only if this order information is mapped in the systems in such a way that it allows both the supply of production and the collection of relevant information can the desired goals be achieved.
This realization prompted the need to take a closer look at feature-oriented processes (MOP). These form the basis for structuring product and manufacturing data in such a way that flexible, digitally controlled production with a high degree of variety is possible.
Outcome
Target architecture for the digital factory defined
Evaluation of suitable solution options for production control (in-house development vs. established MES)
Roadmap for the modernization of the IT landscape with a focus on feature-oriented processes created
Foundation for the start of the MOP project laid
The results
With the completion of the project, PALMBERG now has a clearly structured digitization concept that serves as a strategic basis for the future orientation of its production. The concept compares two solution approaches that can be used to implement end-to-end digital production control.
Firstly, a cloud-based in-house development in collaboration with abat was considered, which however would have required more personnel and a longer implementation period. Secondly, the implementation of abat's established MES PLUS was analyzed, which is designed for the use of feature-oriented processes and has already proven itself in the furniture industry. For this solution, a fit-gap analysis identified the areas in which the MES already meets the existing requirements and where adjustments or extensions are needed.
In addition, the necessary restructuring of IT was considered. With the developed roadmap and the corresponding migration plan, concrete recommendations were formulated on how the existing IT systems can be modernized and further developed to enable the implementation of feature-oriented processes and provide long-term support.
The project concluded with a reference visit to a leading European furniture manufacturer that uses the MES across all its production sites and has successfully completed the transition to feature-oriented processes. The insights gained there confirmed the approaches described in the digitalization concept and highlighted their practical relevance.
Outlook
Based on the digitalization concept developed, PALMBERG has decided to take the next step and launch a project to implement feature-oriented processes. The project is currently in the project initialization phase led by abat, in which the foundations for implementation are being laid. This includes the creation of a product requirements document that describes the concrete outline of the project – such as staffing, the main focus areas, and the interactions with other corporate goals and planned projects.
The planned project will be based on abat's proven production control solution PLUS, which was developed specifically for the requirements of the furniture industry. Experience from existing customer scenarios and previous projects will also be incorporated in order to optimally support PALMBERG on its path to an end-to-end digitally controlled and multi-variant production. PALMBERG is thus setting the course for a production that will be able to confidently meet future market requirements.
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