About Abies
Abies Austria Holzverarbeitung GmbH is an Austrian wood-processing manufacturer based in Upper Austria. The company produces structural timber for timber houses and roof structures, and positions itself as a leading producer of construction timber in Austria. In a business built on reliable material flow, product quality, and consistent delivery performance, operational excellence is central to day-to-day performance.
The challenge
Abies’ wood-processing lines operate at high speeds, where even small deviations in material flow can escalate quickly. Boards may skew, accumulate, jam, or break at transfer points. If not addressed immediately, these issues can block production, require manual intervention, reduce throughput, and put unnecessary strain on surrounding equipment.
One recurring problem area was the trim-and-measure cross-transfer conveyors - especially at the transfer end. When timber jammed in this zone, it had to be detected instantly to prevent longer stoppages.
However, operators cannot continuously monitor every transfer point while running the line. Manual observation alone was not sufficient.
Abies needed a solution to:
- Continuously monitor critical production areas
- Detect jams early
- Trigger real-time actions
- Ensure operators are immediately informed when the machine is stopped
The solution
At Abies, Cerrion AI Agents were deployed on 10 existing cameras covering the bottleneck infeed trim-and-measure cross-transfer conveyors but also other key transfer and wood processing areas, such as planers, elevating conveyors and board splitters.
When the AI detects a skewed, broken, overlapping, or stuck plank or identifies that a machine is starting to jam, it reacts immediately. The AI sends a stop signal to the affected machine or conveyor section and alerts the operator that the line has been halted.
This transforms a recurring issue from something operators had to notice manually into an automatically detected and controlled event. Instead of waiting for a jam to escalate, the line now responds instantly at the point of risk.
Each event is also recorded in Cerrion’s shop floor applications, creating a clear basis for follow-up. This helps operators and line leaders understand what happened and continuously improve the process in a more structured way over time.
Impact and outcomes
- 70% reduction in downtime on the infeed trim-and-measure cross-transfer conveyors
- Autonomous preventive line stops before blockages occur
- Immediate operator alert when the machine is stopped allowing faster response to a recurring material-flow issue
- Better visibility into incidents for follow-up and root cause analysis
- Clear path to run additional production areas unmanned with Cerrion AI Agents
From downtime reduction to autonomous production
After achieving a 70% reduction in downtime on the infeed trim-and-measure cross-transfer conveyors, Abies expanded the deployment from 10 to 22 cameras across the entire production.
With Cerrion’s AI Agents now live throughout the factory, Abies is using the technology as a foundation for more autonomous production. The results from the initial deployment demonstrated that Cerrion AI Agents can go beyond monitoring and enable real-time operational control.
Building on this success, Abies plans to make one key production area run fully autonomously with Cerrion. The goal is not only to detect deviations, but also to trigger the right response instantly, creating a more stable production flow with less reliance on operators.
