by Striped Giraffe Team
17. April 2019
Time to read: 6 Minutes
The Future Challenges of a Data-Driven Economy
What does the company need to do to meet the future challenges of a data-driven economy? To get competent answers, Striped Giraffe invited experts to the first “Digital Future Day” which took place on December 6, 2018 at the company’s headquarters in Munich.
One of the experts was Igor Kleiman – the CEO of Striped Giraffe Switzerland – who sees tomorrow’s challenge as being that of how to interconnect companies in a truly effective fashion. Up to now, the concept has been limited to the field of industrial manufacturing. The term Industry 4.0 stands for the fourth industrial revolution, the digital technologies of which unleash vast potential by networking people, products, machines, systems and companies.
Industry 4.0
Kleiman defines Industry 4.0 as follows:
1.
Unlike in the previous industrial revolutions, the fourth will not only be limited to industrial production; it will affect all aspects of our lives.
2.
All parts of a company are connected. There are standard protocols.
3.
The company acts decentrally; machines and robots operate autonomously, and not under the control of a single mainframe computer.
4.
The enterprise reacts in real time to, for instance, changing customer needs.
5.
Virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) are used everywhere in the enterprise, which means that the reality layers can no longer be distinguished from one another.
6.
They are initially implemented within the scope of application cases comprising a combination of technologies, methods, data, models, services and processes. This means that can they be optimized in different parts of the company or at the interfaces to customers or partners.
Toolbox for perfect networking
With our IoT technology platforms, Striped Giraffe already today offers an impressive picture of Industry 4.0. We have five modules for ensuring the perfectly customised networking of companies.
1.
The Connectivity Module ensures that the system can connect up to all kinds of interfaces. All conventional databases and most industrial sensors can be integrated.
2.
The Base Module gives each device, software and hardware component in the company its own identity [=pragma =thing (Greek)].
3.
The Analytics Module implements machine learning models and integrate things like predictive maintenance, anomaly detection and other algorithms from the field of artificial intelligence into the ongoing business processes.
4.
The Virtual Reality Studio closes the gap between the digital and physical worlds, using AR.
5.
The real-time corporate data are then embedded into the customer-specific VR models. The Utilities Module provides the opportunity to build special apps for the company, without needing extensive programming skills.
Finding the mistake using data glasses
Mr. Kleiman also presented one of his IoT-based application scenarios: an augmented reality analysis of the functionality of a motor or machine in the company. With this concept, all machines and their statuses, for instance in a brewery or coffee roastery, are visible at a glance on a dashboard, making anomalies immediately recognisable. An app then gives the mechanic in the facility an exact idea of where the error can be found and what has to be done. Up to now, this tool works with a smartphone, tablet or VR glasses. Using the real video of a production plant, a virtual 3D model is created that can for example point with arrows to the relevant screw, nut or bolt, or that displays the technical monitoring information for the individual modules of the plant.
One absolute highlight is the flexibility of the presented IoT platform, which makes it possible to realise application scenarios that can be applied in multiple industries. For example, in addition to industrial solutions, exciting e-commerce or end-customer solutions for the finance industry can be implemented using one and the same framework. Mr. Kleiman’s live demonstration thus confirms his theory on the special, multifaceted character of the 4th industrial revolution.
