Creating Digital Immortality

 

It is certainly boring to keep talking again about a shortage of skilled workers. But the ever faster emerging know-how gap as a result of the retirement of the boomers forces companies that depend on qualified employees to find new ways.

 

In many SMEs, everyday life now looks like this: A young maintenance technician is solely responsible for 50 machines, as his older colleague has recently retired. Of the 50 machines, about 75% are older than ten years. Most of the documents, such as the machine book or operating/repair instructions, are in printed form and are stored "somewhere" in the company and cannot be found.

 

Now he is supposed to repair the spindle drive control and regulation on a ten-year-old lathe and has no idea how. Since he can't find any documentation, he's been "stuck" in the manufacturer's hot line queue for hours. Now good advice is expensive in the truest sense of the word - long downtimes, lost production, hassle due to delivery delays and a lot of stress. For a long time, many producers did not deal with this development, as other challenges seemed greater in the past. But for some years now, the shortage of skilled workers has become an issue, especially when it comes to recruiting young talent.

 

This change is expressed more clearly than in the past in customer demands. The results of our
 market survey during EMO 2017 and 2019 show this clearly and declare four points as priorities
by far: Obviously, the desire for better machines is no longer in the for better machines is no longer
in the foreground, but the safety, effectiveness and efficiency of the work in direct connection
with the human-machine interface is perceived as unsatisfactory and should

and should be urgently improved.

 

For example with our Field Execution System k.FES. That make work easier, reduce errors,
increase productivity and value creation. In addition, k.FES provides your most important
employees with digital immortality.

 

k.FES meet the customer requirments perfectly and therefore we promise:

–   up to 50 % better operating safety

–   up to 90 %  error-free operation

–   up to 50 % less downtimes  and
     shorter maintenance periods
–   more than 25 % lower costs*

 

The core of k.FES is content. More precisely: target group, didactically and methodically appropriate transformation of all available information plus live instructions transmitted by experts into digital content. That stores all the know-how of knowledge carriers – especially the boomers - as digital information and instruction. All this information convey assistance and instructions via mobile devices in a clear, stress-free and less time-consuming way directly on location.

 

All k.FES tools are custom designed for SMEs, small industrial companies, machine and plant manufacturers, as well as assembly and maintenance companies. Thanks to the intelligent use of resources, all Tools make a significant contribution to the decarbonization of production operations.

Wide range of applications

– Machine Operation

– Maintenance to DIN/ISO 31051 and DIN/ISO 13306

– Assembly

– Repairs

– Offshore and Outdoor Works

– Onboarding Processes

– Interim Trainings

– Education / Further training

– Product presentations

 

According to a study by Q_PERIOR the german industry loses up to 23 million working days per year searching for information. Not only because a lot of Information isn’t available digitally yet, but also because it cannot be retrieved directly at the workplace. Providing the needed information at the right time, in the right place in an appropriate format is one of the most important prerequisites for error- and stress-free work. Whether and how the information is made available at the workplace depends largely on the degree of digitization and the digital infrastructure of a company. Therefore, a closer look at the current state of digitalization is worthwhile, especially in small and medium-sized enterprises. In our opinion, too many future scenarios that ignore the reality of the companies dominate recent publications on the topic of Industry 4.0.

 

The Importance of Know-How Transformation

 

Talking about Industry 4.0, the SME shopfloor leads a niche existence. Actually  the biggest problem there is the know-how gap resulting from the generation change, which cannot be compensated for with large, costly industrial systems.

 

We developed k.FES specifically for SMEs and their most important stakeholders: the employees.

 

Requirements for ease of implementation, ease of use, and low cost of ownership were also taken into account. To engage employees, it is essential to tell a positive story about the transformation. Thanks to our many years of experience in storytelling and change management, we can provide companies with optimal support in this regard.

 

The digital transformation of information, instructions and data into authorized content requires both technical knowledge and skills in subject didactics, technical editing and content production. We are really good at this because we come from the engineering sciences and not just from software development. Of course, this know-how is also present in companies, so companies can successfully implement the transformation on their own after only a short training with our tools.

 

Whenever it makes sense and is feasible, we recommend videos for knowledge transfer, as they are ideally suited to the learning habits of young people.

To avoid misunderstandings - these are not Youtube DIY videos. Process-relevant content must be prepared, edited and finally released. Our tools facilitate this work immensely, but cannot replace your own editorial work.