A Gasruss DGW Case Study: How Operational Excellence Found Its Digital Match

Gasruss DGW did not need a system to tell them how to run a plant. With two carbon black production facilities in Germany, a strong safety culture and decades of operational discipline, they had already built something most manufacturers spend years trying to achieve: a team that takes process seriously. What they needed was a digital platform capable of matching that standard. One that could replace an ageing legacy system that was limiting their reach, locking operators to fixed terminals, and making it harder than it should be to access and act on operational information. They needed something modern, built for how operations actually work. Working with Cyzag, that is exactly what they built.

Explore how Gasruss DGW modernised their operational infrastructure, powered by a strong internal commitment and accelerated by a genuine partnership with Cyzag.

The Challenge

Gasruss DGW set out to replace a legacy digital system without losing any of the operational culture and process discipline they had built over many years. The challenge was not motivation; the team was already committed to continuous improvement and structured operations. The challenge was infrastructure.

A system that couldn’t keep up

For years, Gasruss DGW had relied on Lotus Notes as their digital backbone for shift management and incident reporting. As the operation grew and expectations evolved, its limitations became increasingly apparent. Operators could only access the system from fixed terminals, making it impossible to read the shift log, create entries or report incidents from the shop floor or during rounds. Managers had to go to the control rooms to check for data. A system meant to support operational visibility was, in practice, reducing it.

Beyond accessibility, the interface was restrictive and outdated, not built for the pace or complexity of a multi-shift manufacturing environment. And with Lotus Notes approaching the end of life, the question was no longer whether to change, but how to do it well.

Fragmented information, complex to navigate

The visibility gap extended beyond the shift log. With safety processes, operational documentation and countermeasure tracking spread across multiple tools, maintaining a clear, consolidated view of priorities, deadlines and progress required significant manual effort, particularly across plants operating continuous shift patterns. Cross-referencing information between systems made it harder than it should be to move quickly from identifying an issue to acting on it.

The team needed a single, connected platform that could bring everything together, carrying their strong existing processes forward and giving them the visibility to manage them with even greater precision.

“Our strategic approach was to connect fragmented information into one integrated process, ensuring traceability from the original notification through to the countermeasures. This creates transparency and supports more effective management of improvement activities.”

Peter Hartmann, Managing Director, Gasruss DGW

The Solution

The decision to partner with Cyzag was made with confidence rather than risk. Gasruss’s leadership had already seen the platform operating at another organisation before the conversation began. The team did not need to be convinced of the concept; they needed to shape it for their environment. That distinction set the tone for everything that followed.

A partnership built on mutual commitment

From the outset, the implementation was driven as a collaborative effort. The operations team took full ownership of building workflows, forms and use cases, investing significant internal effort to configure the platform around how Gasruss actually works. Cyzag’s role was to support that work: responsively, flexibly and consistently. Regular check-ins between both teams ensured issues were caught early and resolved quickly. When a new requirement emerged from the shop floor, the platform was adapted to meet it.

“Cyzag took a flexible and solution orientated approach, adapting to our needs and quickly addressing challenges. This helped us keep the project aligned with our goals and move forward.”

Peter Hartmann, Managing Director, Gasruss DGW

Digitalising the operations layer

The shift log was the first and most visible transformation. Replacing Lotus Notes, Cyzag gave operators a modern, intuitive interface accessible from any device, including mobile on the shop floor and during outdoor rounds. Entries, including pictures, can be created, read and flagged from anywhere. Important items can be marked for the attention of upcoming shifts. The full shift history is searchable and accessible without friction.

Alongside the shift log, structured action and task management were introduced, organising standard, special and one-off tasks in a single place, visible across shifts and teams. The operations team can extract and report data externally, including through tools such as Power BI, expanding the analytical value of what operators are already capturing.

“I can easily read the logbook from everywhere. I can use my phone. It’s much easier to create new entries and to implement operator rounds. The communication between plants has also improved significantly.”

Tim Freytag, Head of Production, Gasruss DGW

Connecting safety workflows end to end

Beyond the operations layer, Cyzag replaced the fragmented safety process with a structured, end-to-end incident notification workflow. When an event occurs, whether a near miss, a risk observation or an environmental incident, operators complete a dynamic form that adapts based on the type of incident. From there, the process runs automatically: an email notification reaches the full plant team, the EHS department reviews the entry, countermeasures are assigned to named individuals with visible status, and the workflow progresses through to closure in a single system.

Safety dialogue forms for management were also introduced, designed to be completed on a phone directly on the shop floor, enabling real-time reporting on completion rates and making the safety dialogue a practical, in-the-moment activity.

“Everybody at DGW can report a near miss, risk, or incident. It goes through a workflow, everybody gets notified, the EHS department checks it, and then we have a workflow for countermeasures. Now the process is more transparent and also easier to follow.”

Tim Freytag, Head of Production, Gasruss DGW

The Results: A Partnership That Delivered

Gasruss DGW has transformed how operational information is captured, acted on and shared across the organisation, with Cyzag now live across two plants. What was once a manual, terminal-bound process is now connected and available on any phone, giving every shift the information it needs, when and where it needs it. The results reflect both the quality of the team that was already there and the strength of the partnership that accelerated the change.

Fast, genuine operator adoption

Adoption across both plants was faster than anticipated. Operators took to the platform without significant resistance, a reflection of the user-friendly design and of the operations team’s careful shaping of the implementation around real workflows before asking anyone to use it. In total, 64 operators across the two plants are now active on Cyzag.

In an internal survey, operators gave the platform a satisfaction score of 4.3 out of 5, citing its ease of use and mobile access as standout strengths. The survey was conducted while Gasruss continued rolling out the platform across legacy workflows, with satisfaction expected to increase as adoption progresses.

“The system runs very well and without issues. I also think the special tasks list is excellent!”

Operator, Gasruss DGW (internal survey)

“For me, it was surprisingly easy to convince the operators to use it. Maybe I have an easy team, but it really was not an issue at all.”

Tim Freytag, Head of Production, Gasruss DGW

Operational visibility in the field and across shifts

The shift log transformation has changed how information moves through the operation. Operators now create entries during rounds and on the shop floor, capturing observations as they occur. Relevant entries are flagged for upcoming shifts, ensuring handover-critical information is visible and not dependent on memory or verbal communication alone. For the management team, a consolidated view of both plants is accessible from a single platform, with the ability to sort, filter and extract shift data for reporting and analysis.

“With Cyzag, I’m more aware of important entries in the logbook. It makes it easier to sift through the entries and since I can read them from everywhere, even with my mobile phone, this makes things a lot easier.”

Tim Freytag, Head of Production, Gasruss DGW

Safety management: a closed-loop process

The transformation in safety management has been among the most concrete improvements. The end-to-end incident workflow has replaced a fragmented process with a single, transparent system, from notification through to countermeasure closure. Every incident is tracked, assigned and visible. 55 safety dialogues are now tracked and reported monthly, with completion rates visible in real time. Morning meetings now run directly from the Cyzag safety cross: incidents, near misses and countermeasure status, all on a single screen.

“Our strategy was to make safety information easy to access and use in daily meetings. With everything available in the safety cross, we can focus on key issues and agree on actions.”

Peter Hartmann, Managing Director, Gasruss DGW

“We had a strong safety management process already, but Cyzag helped us to monitor and track the process, ensuring that it closes out correctly.”

Tim Freytag, Head of Production, Gasruss DGW

A platform that earns its place

When asked directly whether Cyzag represents value for money, Gasruss’s leadership said yes, without hesitation. The value lies in consolidating documentation into a single searchable platform, reducing administrative friction, and making operational data accessible for analysis and reporting. Like many foundational operational investments, it is not always easy to reduce to a single number, but that is precisely what makes it significant. The ability to see what is happening across the operation, act on it faster and continuously improve is not a line item. It is the condition that makes everything else possible.

Both the operations team and leadership described their engagement with Cyzag as a genuine partnership, not a vendor relationship. Regular contact, immediate responsiveness, and the flexibility to adapt the platform to Gasruss’s specific way of working have been consistent features of the collaboration.

Asked whether they would recommend Cyzag to others, Tim Freytag answered:

“Yeah, sure. I would.”

Tim Freytag, Head of Production, Gasruss DGW

“Our communication makes it feel like a partnership, not a customer relationship.”

Tim Freytag, Head of Production, Gasruss DGW

Next Steps

The partnership between Gasruss DGW and Cyzag is still moving forward. The team there benefits from a platform already trusted across the wider organisation.

Key priorities for the partnership ahead include:

• Completing the migration of remaining Lotus Notes workflows to eliminate the last parallel system dependencies.
• AI-enhanced shift handover, surfacing the most important entries, flagging items requiring follow-up, and supporting a more structured handover process.
• A behaviour-based safety observation programme, using Cyzag to capture, analyse and act on field observations across the site, identifying patterns and priorities at organisational level.
• Continued expansion of the countermeasure and audit workflow, bringing additional process types into the single platform already managing incident notifications and safety dialogues.

With a strong operational foundation, a committed team, and a platform built around how they actually work, Gasruss DGW is well-positioned to keep improving, shift by shift, plant by plant.

About Gasruss DGW

Gasruss DGW is a carbon black manufacturer based in Germany, operating two production plants with 64 operators across continuous shift patterns. The company is known for its strong safety culture and operational discipline, and continues to expand its use of digital tools to support frontline teams.