Intelligent Manufacturing Award
Last year's winners
Architects of digital ecosystems
Microsoft and Roland Berger present the Intelligent Manufacturing Award to industrial companies that set new standards in the Factory of the Future with innovative digitalization projects in the operations sphere.
A highlight of the annual Microsoft Envision Forum: Manufacturing – Industry Day , the award is evolving into a prestigious prize presented for Industry 4.0 Excellence in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Every year, the winners are chosen by a top-class jury . The 2019 winners are:
Overall winner: Intelligent Manufacturing Award / Convincing across categories 2019
Bizerba SE & Co. KG
Use case: Zero waste in retail – Bizerba Smart Shelf.
The Bizerba Smart Shelf precisely records the fill level of the bakery shelf at the customer terminus. This avoids waste, but it also prevents out-of-stocks, as production can be controlled in the background according to actual consumption. Building on its core area of expertise, weighing, Bizerba placed in-shelf weighing sensors across the entire bakery shelf in order to be able to determine the exact stock level. Bizerba also supplies the backend system for production and price control.
Category: Innovate! Application of technologies
ANDREAS STIHL AG & Co. KG
Use case: Digitalization in customer service and development of the STIHL customer support platform (including connected product support).
New smart products (iMow, STIHL connected) present customers and dealers with new challenges and call for new solutions. That is why the company created a new organizational unit in order to replicate the success story of their servicing dealers in the smart product sphere. State-of-the-art connected technologies are used to provide customers with a modern service tailored to their needs.
Category: Scale! Maturity & growth potential
Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co. KG
Use case: Cloud-based platform for monitoring and analyzing complex audio and video quality criteria.
Rohde & Schwarz broke new ground two years ago with the development of an innovative cloud-based platform for monitoring and analyzing complex audio and video content. Their official launch into the digital world took place at the NAB Show in Las Vegas and the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona 2019. A set of new applications is now available to broadcasters, service providers and telco providers, enabling them to perform measurements and analyses quickly, cost effectively and purely on a software basis. As a result, they are able to significantly improve their own service quality in a predictive manner.
Category: Add Value! Efficiency & revenue potential
BASF SE
Use case: Data-to-value project.
The project consists of three pillars. At the core of it is a corporate data lake in which all the company's data is stored. A team of around 150 data administrators in each business unit within the company takes care of the focus of data collection and usage and is the single point of contact for all data-related issues. The third pillar is a team of data monetization managers that are taken on by startups and companies in various industries to examine the available data and match it against the challenges BASF faces in developing new solutions for internal and external sales.
Category: Envision! Vision & transformative impact
BMW AG
Use case: Open Manufacturing Platform.
The platform is an open ecosystem for innovative Industrial IoT solutions in the manufacturing industry. Proprietary IT systems, data silos and incompatible data formats have so far limited the introduction of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) solutions in manufacturing companies and especially across company boundaries. This is where the BMW Group and Microsoft come in with their Open Manufacturing Platform (OMP) initiative.
