News

Ecosystem in action

At the Industry Hackathon 2019 - the final of the Fast Ramp-Up Challenge - data, know-how, materials and resources were shared within a business ecosystem on MindSphere to develop real prototypes in the shortest possible time.

From January to October 2019, the MindSphere World Fast Ramp-Up Challenge took place, a creative innovation process in collaboration with machine builders, robot manufacturers, production and financing specialists. Together, the participating companies, half members of the MindSphere World Community, developed innovative approaches for the rapid construction of "Fast Ramp-Up" production cells and created a theme-related MindSphere Business Ecosystem.

The results were presented to a large audience at ARENA 2036 in Stuttgart in mid-October. The two teams presented their prototypes and proved that real cooperation in the form of a business ecosystem is feasible.

One team dealt with the topic "Onboarding Driverless Transport Systems (DTS)" and worked out how it is possible to integrate new components more quickly into existing systems. In addition to manufacturer-independent edge and cloud maintenance applications, they also developed an "over-the-air" configuration option for the DTS fleet to enable rapid changes to be made.

The second team dealt with "AR Optimization (Augmented Reality) with Digital Twin" and thought about how changeover times could be shortened. The conversion of a DTS with a robot arm served as a case study. In addition to a cloud application to visualize the production data and compare it with the planning data, the team developed an AR application to support the end user and prevent the FTS from stopping. The Fast-Ramp-Up Challenge will soon be continued at a consolidation workshop with lawyers and financial experts to check what needs to be taken into account outside the test atmosphere. The final step towards a "Business Ecosystem Blueprint" will be expert discussions to put the consolidated results to the test.

The overall results and the prototypes will be presented at SPS - Smart Production Solutions in Nuremberg on 27.11.2019 in Hall 11.