The Internet has captured the machines

© Kapsch

For one entrepreneur, digitization is a promise. The others doubt whether it is the right path.

An expert comment by Christian Wenner, Kapsch BusinessCom. You have certainly already heard the following sentence in this form: "The digitisation transformation affects all economic sectors." For some, this is a big promise, again with others, it creates doubts whether, as a small provider, you can keep up with the big players. Digitisation is an irreversible development. People who recognise it as a chance will also find ways to use them. At first sight, this also applies to analogue or classical sectors close to production. In the production area, for example, there are savings of 20 to 50 percent in areas such as scrap, energy efficiency, logistics or even general operating costs.

Smart products need smart services
The Smart Products segment, however, is often the case, and new business models are often emerging. The trend is moving away from product sales to offering a service. Windmill manufacturers no longer sell only wind turbines, but the service of energy production together with maintenance and consulting. With the IoT you can try out a lot. It also changes the construction industry. Even though bricks are laid on top of bricks, or concrete and steel are still processed, logistics processes exist behind these, where digitisation brings about many advantages.
Construction machines, for example, are a scarce, expensive commodity. And they are exposed to enormous stress. The more precisely the hire company knows about their utilisation, the better it can plan ahead. Internet of things offers the right approaches here. Thanks to “Internet of things“ they know which machine has to lift which load and thus make better and more precise offers to customers and also better plan the replacement of spare parts.

Detailed information via sensors
By means of the collection of detailed information via sensors at the networked machines and the intelligent data analysis (Big Data Analytics), processes are optimised accordingly. Construction machines with sufficient capacities are thereby always in the right place. The maintenance costs are reduced as maintenance can be carried out more precisely through Predictive Maintenance.
Also the life of the heavy equipment is increased. In future, building contractors may possibly not pay a time-dependent rent for building cranes, but a usage-dependent fee per ton raised. This creates new business models, such as the "Machine as a Service".