All the know-how in your pocket

Unplanned machine breakdowns cost time and money. Elara Digital GmbH now offers the right solutions for reduced downtimes and increased machine availability. Relevant information such as work orders, checklists, machine documentation or guides for trouble shooting can be created in an easy and intuitive way and can be accessed at any time: a knowledge data base for maintenance teams. BEUMER Group supported the project of the founders and managing directors Akram Alraai and Dominik Adamowski with start-up financing.

“Numerous discussions with customers from the manufacturing sector have shown that unplanned machine breakdowns always represent a big problem and can last up to three hours on average,” says Akram Alraai who, in collaboration with Dominik Adamowski, founded the Elara Digital GmbH in Berlin. Adamowski mentions a typical example with a well-known German sports manufacturer: “Because a Profibus component failed, the systems stood still for two hours. The calculated loss amounted to approx. 40,000 Euro.”

In order to support the companies in reducing these costs considerably and in increasing the machine availability, the two company founders developed a new solution – a cloud-based software application, which starts with the improvement of the trouble shooting process: getting an overview, orchestrating communication and, in cases of emergency, local access to relevant information. Elara Digital closes the gap between the maintenance director and the workshop employees. The founders emphasise that their application reduces complexity and provides transparency by equipping the employees in the workshop with a simple mobile application: the factory know-how in your pocket.

A strong partner at your side

The two founders received extensive support also from the Berlin-based, autonomous company builder Beam, a spin-off of BEUMER Group. “We try to solve unique problems in logistics together with the start-up teams,” explains Managing Director Robert Bach. “My task is to find young entrepreneurs with business ideas that are relevant to us. We want to create three start-ups per year and transform them each into a separate company under the umbrella of Beam – like the Elara Digital GmbH.” The aim of BEUMER Group is to open new business areas in logistics together with these companies.

Akram Alraai reports of the beginnings: “BEUMER Group brought us together with more than 30 companies, allowing us to interview them on machine breakdowns and maintenance subjects.” His co-founder Dominik Adamowski and he were surprised how painful trouble shooting processes can often be. But what happens exactly? Presuming, the user is operating the BEUMER stretch hood® high-capacity packaging system. Suddenly the system stops during the shift. An indicator light starts flashing and the error code xfDE45 appears on the display.” The operator either takes care of the problem or calls a service technician. But no matter who of the two carries out the task, both of them will have to face questions: “Where is the manual for this machine? Where are the checklists and the spare parts lists? Who has carried out the last inspection? What does xfDE45 actually mean? Is there a trouble shooting guide for the current problem?”

Pen and paper slow down digitalisation

It can sometimes take a long time for the employee to have all the information ready. In their discussions with the companies, Akram Alraai and Dominik Adamowski were able to identify some of the main causes of these time wasters: “Often predictive maintenance is missing,” says Adamowski. This means: The technicians repair defective components and replace the bad ones only if really necessary or at fixed intervals, but not at intervals based on empirical values.” This usually requires auxiliary means such as Internet of Things or big-data analysis. The implementation is too complex and time-consuming for many companies. Often, work orders, trouble shooting guides or checklists are handwritten and filled in laboriously.

There is not only the risk of mistakes due to unreadable handwriting, but these documents also have to be scanned in order to be filed digitally. “Companies would like to have a system for easy order processing in maintenance,” describes Alraai. “Electronic maintenance schedules or checklists should not be put on paper first, but directly into the system.”

During the discussions, the two founders also learned how the maintenance topic has changed especially in the Covid pandemic. In order to adhere to the distance rules, many companies switched to shift operation. The result: the personnel cover is thinner in each shift and therefore less employees are available for quick repairs.

Moving towards more efficiency

“We have started here,” says Akram Alraai. „Our software allows to create digital work and maintenance orders in easy and fast way and to directly assign them to the right employee.” He can start working directly with his smartphone: He scans the QR code at the machine or system and can immediately access all relevant data required for example for inspection or trouble shooting. “In order to find the required document even faster, he can call it up via voice command,” says Adamowski. In case of unexpected problems in production, employees often refer to trouble shooting guides and if these are not available, it is possible to upload pictures and videos. This makes it easier to diagnose the problem and then solve it. The software records all possible malfunctions and communicates them,” describes Adamowski. “Thus the employee has the entire know-how on his smartphone.”

The web application permits the maintenance director to have an overview on all machines and employees in operation. On the display, he can also call up all important figures to determine the activities in the workshop. Reports and protocols can be generated and exported in different languages via the app with the help of artificial intelligence. Thus they can be easily transferred to existing systems.

Shared knowledge is more knowledge

Headword Knowledge Sharing Economy: “On our platform we want to make the manufactuer’s digital information, such as manuals or tutorials, accessible to our customers,” says Adamowski. “At this regard, we offer an interface through which their documents can be uploaded. Machine operators can also upload and share their reports on faults and how to fix them.”

This way, the knowledge database is continuously filled with practically applicable know-how. Data security plays a very important role: the data are anonymised, protected and stored on servers in Germany. Thus, every user can access checklists, manuals or guides and benefit from a large pool of knowledge and expertise.

With the start-up, BEUMER Group can successfully pursue its goal of bringing digital solutions into the corporate group. The system provider can now provide its customers with even better support, strengthening its position as partner on the market. The two company founders Akram Alraai and Dominik Adamowski have calculated that users need up to 1.5 hours less for trouble shooting than without virtual assistant. This can save them up to 30,000 euros on average. And Elara Digital?

“We benefit from the cooperation with BEUMER Group in the form of generous start-up financing, an extensive network of experts and customers, and a great deal of know-how,” Akram Alraai says happily. “We are now part of the BEUMER family.”

The post Beumer Group: Start-up Elara Digital GmbH develops a new virtual assistant for the manufacturing facilities appeared first on Cargo Connexion.

BEUMER Group has declared digitization a top priority in order to maximize customer satisfaction, while remaining competitive. How can this be achieved? The system supplier relies on the support of start-up companies to bring digital projects into the group. Felix Ostwald and Jonas Grunwald with their company Codept GmbH belong to the so-called “Young and Wild”. Their newly developed logistic platform simplifies the data interchange between retailers and fulfillment service providers. This saves time and money for both parties, provides more flexibility, and allows warehouse logistics operators to better use their capabilities. The idea was born out of an acute experience.
 
“The logistics sector clearly lacks what has long been the standard in payment transactions or online advertising: an integrative platform which offers simple access to a wide variety of different service providers and develops optimization services that are too complex for retailers and logistics providers individually”, Felix Ostwald describes their solution that will considerably simplify the connection between fulfillment providers and e-commerce retailers. The 31-year-old co-founder and managing director and his partner Jonas Grunwald, 34 years old, have founded the company Codept. But not alone. They are supported by the company builder Beam, a spin-off of BEUMER Group based in Berlin. “We try to solve big problems in logistics together with the start-up teams”, says managing director Robert Bach. “My job is to find young companies with business ideas that are relevant for us and to support them in their establishment. We want to create three start-ups per year and transform them each into a separate company under the umbrella of Beam – like the Codept GmbH.” The aim is to open new business areas in logistics together with these companies.

The simplification of application programming interfaces
“What made us come up with the idea?”, Jonas Grunwald repeats the question. “It started out of an acute experience. Fulfillment providers often lose potential customers because they lack the resources for an IT connection or because the initial costs are too high. We simplify the application programming interface of our customers’ systems considerably so that they can concentrate on their core business.” This becomes more and more important especially considering growing internationalization. E-commerce retailers increasingly must be able to dispatch goods to France, Italy or the Netherlands. Big online sellers like Amazon or Zalando manage it within 24 to 48 hours. If a mid-sized company is not able to achieve this, it quickly loses potential customers. In order to meet this standard, the company not only needs warehouse locations in Germany but throughout Europe. “Integrating operators into your own system landscape has so far been extremely time-consuming”, says Felix Ostwald from his own experience. If a retailer for example needs five logistic service providers for storage, packaging, dispatching or also for processing returns, they must set up five interfaces. A programmer is on duty for at least one month both on the dealer’s side and on the service provider’s side, which is both time and cost intensive. “Our new logistic platform offers homogenous interface management as well as reliable data management”, promises Grunwald. “We take care of this connection for the customer. Our platform allows a quick and simple integration of a new partner into the customer’s system without additional efforts.”

Motivation and at least two years of experience
Not everyone is suitable to be a founder, says Robert Bach, managing director of Beam GmbH. “We require at least two years of experience – ideally in a start-up company. If you’re fresh out of college you’re probably not the best fit for us.” Felix completed his business studies with a bachelor’s degree and worked at Contorion, an e-commerce platform for industrial needs. There, he met Jonas in 2015. At that time Felix selected the corresponding logistics providers and took care of their integration – a good basis for his future company. He graduated with a master’s degree in Global Supply Management at the Cass Business School in London and then started working at Zalando. Afterwards he started to work at Otto Group as Supply-Chain project manager. “As part of a project, I developed a new material flow software for Otto Group in cooperation with Siemens Digital Logistics,” he describes. “But no matter where I worked, interfaces were never standardized; the integration was always a challenge.”

Jonas also has quite some experience to look back on – especially in the start-up scene. In Copenhagen, for example, he helped set up a fish import company. “In the food industry, I went through three start-up-like companies”, he says. At 24, he went back to university to study business administration and sociology. After his bachelor’s degree he went to the London School of Economics and Political Science, an elite university, and studied economic sociology. “This was the very right place for me”, he says. He is a passionate nerd and points laughingly to his Microsoft socks. “Besides risk analysis I am interested in game theory, logic and systems theory. The road to software was then not far away.” He first worked as project manager in a start-up company in London. Then he came to Berlin and worked for the same employer as Felix. Among other things he developed and improved logistic systems. One task for example was to automate the process and integrate the service providers.

Very early on, both colleagues felt the desire to create something of their own. “We were in Berlin in the middle of a start-up environment. If you are young and more or less dynamic, crazy ideas come up very quickly”, Felix says. We had ants in our pants;” it was 2015. They never lost sight of each other after that. In 2018 Jonas got in touch with the company builder Beam. He had to face a video interview and convincingly show his motivation and passion. “We spent four months looking exactly were the focus was”, says Robert Bach. “Is he making any progress? How seriously does he take his tasks and how does he manage to develop his own business model?” Jonas tells Felix about his idea and sparks his interest. In cooperation with Beam they continue to refine their idea. “We knew how complex it would be from the e-commerce side to integrate several specialized companies,” explains Felix.

The platform is ready
The new logistics platform enables the retailer to expand their business comfortably and respond to the growing internationalization. Codept (codept.de) will also enable them to access a wide range of logistics providers in the future. “If a company for example needs a warehouse in the North of Spain, we will be able to recommend a suitable partner thanks to our continuously growing experience and data”, promises Felix Ostwald.
The platform offers another important advantage to warehouse logistics operators: As it is possible to connect more than one retailer, the service provider will be able to better manage its warehouse and to react to seasonal fluctuations. Why? Particularly at Christmas and Easter e-commerce business is very strong. On the contrary, in summer consumers shop less online. Therefore the storage areas are rather full in winter and empty in summer. “So, if the operator integrates several different retailers, they can better use the space. The cycles are not always identical, bikes for example sell less in the pre-Christmas season while game consoles are sold more – in summer it’s the other way around.”
 
The suitable partner
“We offer young companies comprehensive intralogistics know-how and access to BEUMER experts, suppliers, and customers. We open doors and show them opportunities and challenges,” describes Beam managing director Bach. “This way new founders and talents can solve a concrete problem with us in their own limited liability company.” BEUMER Group also provides start-up financing. “For us money comes only in third place however”, says Felix Ostwald. The network is more important. But what distinguishes Beam as a partner is the people behind it, who stand out especially due to their high liability and reliability.

The post BEUMER Group: with the start-up company Codept to the new business idea appeared first on Cargo Connexion.