Why Excel Is a Liability in Production Planning – And What Comes Next
In manufacturing, capacity planning, utilization tracking, and production status reporting often run on fragile Excel files — costing hours every day, breaking with every change, and quietly turning into operational risk. This session is about what comes after that realization.
Sascha Pfefferkorn, Group Lead of Production Department Machine Tools at Siemens AG Chemnitz, will share how his team replaced manual spreadsheets with robust KNIME workflows for data preparation, dashboard feeds, and automated status emails reaching shift leads, production management, and plant management — turning hours of daily work into a few clicks. Today, several departments have followed, and a growing community of trained colleagues runs reporting in workflows instead of spreadsheets. The next step on the horizon: KNIME Business Hub for automation and enterprise-wide governance.
Benedikt Schwaiger, managing director of SMH Analytics will frame the enabling journey: a structured training path of foundations, advanced expert sessions, and hands-on Workflow Doctor coaching that turned a domain expert into a citizen data analyst and internal multiplier.
Sascha Pfefferkorn (Siemens AG Chemnitz), Benedikt Schwaiger (SMH Analytics GmbH)