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Reutlingen University Werk150

Hub Information

Hub Name
Reutlingen University Werk150
Local Name
Hochschule Reutlingen Werk150
Evolutionary Stage
Fully operational
Geographical Scope
Global

Description

Werk150 was founded in 2011 and is the factory of ESB Business School on the campus of Reutlingen University.

The facility is used for application-oriented research and knowledge transfer in training, continuing education, demonstration of solutions in the areas of Industry 4.0, artificial intelligence (AI) and digital twin. We train future experts in the environment of innovative technologies.

At Werk150, we demonstrate, plan and design:

  • demonstrators for know-how transfer - making Industry 4.0 potential visible,
  • the use of cloud-based tools for service-oriented collaborative engineering,
  • smart automation solutions in logistics,
  • blockchain solutions in the supply chain,
  • agile value creation structures and processes,
  • hybrid work and production systems,
  • methods and tools for planning and realizing future-proof factories, production systems and warehouses,
  • solutions for the cost-optimal design of logistics supply at the strategic (location and production strategies), tactical ( adaptability and robustness) and operational (dynamics and flexibility) levels,
  • solutions with 5G private networks in production and logistics (Werk150 has a full 5G standalone private network).

Werk150 is a research facility of Reutlingen University. The results of applied research are continuously integrated into teaching. As a non-profit institution, it supports small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the implementation of innovation and research tasks. The ESB Business School factory does not pursue any commercial goals or economic interest. Projects are publicly funded or privately realized on cost basis.

Our task as an applied research institution is to bring new developments and innovations from science into application and thus to sustainably support small and medium-sized enterprises in their innovation potential. Through research projects, such as the 5G4KMU project funded by the state of Baden-Württemberg, Werk150 supports companies in their digital transformation.

Werk150's activities to support local SMEs include:

  • Objective advice as independent scientists, as well as low-risk and low-threshold access to new technologies and infrastructures.
  • Development of new products and applications using Werk150's state-of-the-art infrastructure under real test conditions.
  • Research and realization of new business models through feasibility studies and workshops.
  • Prototypical implementation and testing of project ideas with the support of highly qualified personnel.

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Beschreibung:

Das Werk150 wurde 2011 gegründet und ist die Fabrik der ESB Business School auf dem Campus der Hochschule Reutlingen.

Die Einrichtung dient der anwendungsorientierten Forschung und dem Wissenstransfer bei Schulungen, Weiterbildung, Demonstration von Lösungen in den Bereichen Industrie 4.0, Künstlicher Intelligenz und Digitaler Zwilling. Im Umfeld innovativer Technologien bilden wir zukünftige Experten aus.

Im Werk150 demonstrieren, konzipieren und gestalten wir:

  • Demonstratoren zum Know-how-Transfer – so werden Industrie 4.0-Potenziale sichtbar,
  • den Einsatz von cloud-basierten Werkzeugen zum serviceorientierten kollaborativen Engineering,
  • smarte Automatisierungslösungen in der Logistik,
  • Blockchain-Lösungen in der Supply Chain,
  • agile Wertschöpfungsstrukturen und -prozesse,
  • hybride Arbeits- und Produktionssysteme,
  • Methoden und Werkzeuge für die Planung und Realisierung zukunftsfähiger Fabriken, Produktionssysteme und Lager,
  • Lösungen zur kostenoptimalen Gestaltung der logistischen Versorgung auf der strategischen (Standort- und Produktionsstrategien), taktischen (Wandlungsfähigkeit und Robustheit) und operativen (Dynamik und Flexibilität) Ebene,
  • Lösungen mit 5G-Campusnetzen in Produktion und Logistik (das Werk150 besitzt ein vollwertiges 5G standalone Campusnetz).

Das Werk150 ist eine Forschungseinrichtung der Hochschule Reutlingen. Die Ergebnisse der angewandten Forschung fließen kontinuierlich in die Lehre ein. Es unterstützt als gemeinnützige Einrichtung kleine und mittelständische Unternehmen (KMU) bei der Umsetzung von Innovations- und Forschungsaufgaben. Die Fabrik der ESB Business School verfolgt dabei keine kommerziellen Ziele und kein wirtschaftliches Interesse. Projekte werden öffentlich gefördert oder privat auf Kostendeckungsbasis realisiert.

Unsere Aufgabe als angewandte Forschungseinrichtung ist es, neue Entwicklungen und Innovationen aus der Wissenschaft in die Anwendung zu bringen und damit kleine und mittlere Unternehmen in ihrem Innovationspotenzial nachhaltig zu fördern. Durch Forschungsprojekte, wie beispielsweise das vom Land Baden-Württemberg geförderte Projekt 5G4KMU, unterstützt das Werk150 Unternehmen bei ihrer digitalen Transformation.

Zu den Aktivitäten des Werk150 zur Unterstützung lokaler KMU gehören:

  • objektive Beratung als unabhängige Wissenschaftler, sowie einen risikoarmen und niedrigschwelligen Zugang zu neuen Technologien und -Infrastrukturen.
  • Entwicklung neuer Produkte und Anwendungen mithilfe der hochmodernen Infrastruktur des Werk150 unter realen Testbedingungen.
  • Erforschung und Realisierung neuer Geschäftsmodelle durch Machbarkeitsstudien und Workshops.
  • prototypische Implementierung und Tests von Projektideen mit Unterstützung durch hochqualifiziertes Personal.

Contact Data

Coordinator (University)
Reutlingen University
https://www.reutlingen-university.de/en/home/
Year Established
2011
Location
Alteburgstr. 150, 72762, Reutlingen (Germany)
Website
https://en.werk150.de/
Social Media
Contact information
Prof. Dr. Daniel Palm
daniel.palm@reutlingen-university.de
+4971 21 2 71 31 05

Organisation

Organizational form
(part of) Public organization (part of RTO, or university)
Turnover
250.000-500.000
Number of employees
10-25

Technologies

  • Cyber physical systems
  • Robotics
  • Internet of things
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Mobility & Location based technologies
  • Interaction technologies
  • Virtual, augmented and extended reality
  • Additive manufacturing

  • 5G Transfer Center for Small and Medium-Sized Companies

The new 5G wireless technology represents the communication standards of the future – especially in the economy. With 5G the needs of manufacturing companies and the increased demands on industrial applications are taken into account. For 5G enables needs-based networking with high bandwidth, low latency and a high number of connections. Thus 5G creates an important basis for applications in Industry 4.0, intelligent mobility and logistics as well as for the Internet of Things.  

At the 5G4KMU Transfer Centre, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have the opportunity to further develop their products, applications and business models, using the new 5G wireless standards. In addition to the necessary 5G infrastructure, companies are provided with technical expertise in 5G.

Ways of Cooperation:

• Quick Checks: In a quick check, investigate your 5G business ideas in more details with feasibility studies and workshops.
• Exploring Projects: Implement your project idea together with a test environment. First, a corresponding concept is designed and then prototypically implemented and tested in a test environment.
• Open Lab Days: Visit an Open Lab Day in a test environment, where the focus areas of the test environments and demonstrators relating to the topic 5G will be presented.
 

Online reference: https://5g4kmu.de/en/

  • Digital Hubs Baden-Württemberg

Reutlingen University, together with Albstadt-Sigmaringen University, the cities of Reutlingen, Albstadt and Sigmaringen, the counties of Tübingen and Zollernalbkreis, in a consortium led by the Reutlingen Chamber of Commerce and Industry, is part of the Digital Hub Neckar-Alb and Sigmaringen (DNS). The hub is funded by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Labour and Housing of Baden-Wuerttemberg as part of the "Wirtschaft digital Baden-Württemberg" initiative.

The aim of the hub is to link digitisation actors from different economic sectors, research and public administration. Existing digitisation activities in the Neckar-Alb region and in Sigmaringen will be presented in a structured and transparent manner in order to develop new, attractive and target-group oriented offers both for small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) and the public.

These include:

• training of workers in methodical skills in digitisation
• acceleration of technology transfer from universities to SMEs
• networking and promotion of the digitisation of small and medium-sized enterprises in the region
• promotion of development of digital innovations
• creating a communication platform for networking SMEs from the region
 

The focal points of Reutlingen University in the Digital Hub are:

• digitisation in the area of production and logistics
• digital Twin
• development of digital business models
 

Online references: https://www.dns-hub.de/; https://www.wirtschaft-digital-bw.de/digital-hubs/digital-hubs/

  • Innovation vouchers for small and medium-sized enterprises - Baden-Württemberg

In 2008, Baden-Württemberg became the first German state to introduce innovation vouchers for small and medium-sized enterprises. The program supports SMEs in the planning, development, implementation and further development of innovative products, services or production processes. In 2012, the program was expanded to include the Hightech Start-up innovation voucher. It is aimed at high-tech start-ups up to a maximum of five years after foundation and supports innovative projects from the growth fields of the future. In 2017, the Hightech Digital and Hightech Mobility innovation vouchers were introduced to support established companies in the development and realization of sophisticated digital products and services.

Online reference:  https://wm.baden-wuerttemberg.de/de/innovation/innovationsgutscheine/

  • Alliance Industrie 4.0 Baden-Württemberg

Allianz Industrie 4.0 is a network initiated and sponsored by the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Economics. Together with our partner organisations we bundle the competences from production as well as information and communication technology and accompany the industrial middle class in the direction of industry 4.0. The coordination office is located at the VDMA-Landesverband Baden-Württemberg.

With our network partners from companies, applied research institutions, associations, chambers and social partners, we aim to establish Baden-Württemberg as the world's leading region for Industry 4.0 technologies. Small and medium-sized enterprises play a decisive role and are the focus of our work. Through close networking of the industry and technology fields involved, they should benefit particularly from the alliance. In order to achieve this goal, we support and strengthen the direct cooperation of all actors through a comprehensive package of measures.

In addition to information offerings, the main focus is on networking the industries and technology fields involved. In doing so, we can draw on the traditional strengths of our companies: As the "factory supplier of the world", Baden-Württemberg companies are already leaders today in mechanical engineering and plant construction as well as in information and communication technologies geared to industry. The task now is to further expand and network these established partnerships.

Online reference:  https://www.i40-bw.de

 

Market and Services

Sectors

  • Transport and logistics
  • Education
  • Manufacture of machinery and equipment
  • Manufacture of transport equipment
  • Other Manufacturing

TRL Focus

  • TRL3 - Analytical and experimental critical function and/or characteristic proof of concept
  • TRL4 - Component and/or breadboard validation in laboratory environment
  • TRL5 - Component and/or breadboard validation in relevant environment
  • TRL6 - System/subsystem model or prototype demonstration in a relevant environment
  • TRL7 - System prototype demonstration in an operational environment
  • TRL8 - Actual system completed and qualified through test and demonstration
  • TRL9 - Actual system proven through successful mission operations

Services provided

  • Awareness creation
  • Ecosystem building, scouting, brokerage, networking
  • Visioning and Strategy Development for Businesses
  • Collaborative Research
  • Concept validation and prototyping
  • Testing and validation
  • Digital Maturity Assessment
  • Incubator/accelerator support
  • Access to Funding and Investor Readiness Services
  • Mentoring
  • Education and skills development

Service Examples

Development of IT-Service for Manufacturing

Smart Troubleshooting

AX Semantics has developed software that automatically creates texts from classifiable content in 24 languages. A cloud based service (NLG-Cloud) is offered, which generates texts. AX Semantics is successfully used not only by providers of e-commerce portals, but also by publishers and financial service providers to create tax and industry data, economic reports, news about stock market and share developments or sports results.

In order for this technology to be used in the production environment to provide people with targeted information from existing company systems, a project was carried out with Werk150. 

The following work was carried out:

Development of a use case for the transmission of error messages

  • Development of the virtual repository, embedding of existing infrastructure (e.g. driverless transport system, conveyor belt system, 3D printer, collaborative robots)
  • Creation of a simulation program for generating error codes
  • Transmission of data to AX Semantics Software Service

Operation of a demonstrator

  • Operation of the demonstrator over the project duration
  • Development of the demonstrator during the project period

Development of a concept for commercial development

  • Idea generation for further development
  • Potential assessment of the innovation
  • Creation of a roadmap for commercial development

 

Name customer:

AX SEMANTICS

Saim Alkan

Marienstrasse 23, 70178 Stuttgart, Germany

System development

Framework for the intelligent design of secure and distributed applications based on decentralized security technologies (FIDEST)

 

The FIDEST project develops a framework for the intelligent design of secure distributed applications. The basic idea is that the (not necessarily proficient) user models his use case with an intuitive editor and our framework automatically generates an optimal, executable code framework ready for distribution based on decentral security technologies (e.g. blockchain, smart contracts, but also 2-factor authentication). FIDEST does not offer an isolated solution for a specific subproblem and is independent of cloud providers or software producers. Rather, it supports the application developer comprehensively in all IT security issues from the conception and development of his application to the simulation of attack or scaling scenarios, always taking into account performance conditions and implementation costs.

 

The project is a cooperation of the Werk150 with the IT company bbg bitbase group GmbH and is divided in two major work packages.

 

The following work is carried out:

 

Reutlingen University:

  • Development of use cases
  • Specification of requirements and development architecture
  • Conception of the business logic and metamodeling in graph form
  • Development of the graph visualization and graph transformation and the code generator
  • Proposal module for Guided Modeling, support in the development of the simulation module
  • Optimization component and analysis module for user model
  • Validation in the application context, installation support

 

bbg bitbase group GmbH:

  • Specification of requirements and development architecture
  • Automatic generation of commands, business logic, UI
  • Automatic generation of persistence mechanisms
  • Simulation module
  • Optimization component and feedback to the user
  • Test and Installation

 

Name customer:

bbg bitbase group GmbH

Nicolas Fahr

Am Heilbrunnen 47, 72766 Reutlingen, Germany

Development of a Smart Maintenance System

Development of a Smart Maintenance System for Lubrication Processes

 

Monitoring for Lubrication Processes

The axiss GmbH Dispensing Systems is a manufacturer for customer specific dispensing systems to apply adhesives, UV materials, silicones and lubricats precisely. Their portfolio is ranging from extensive dispensing systems with integrated monitoring to stand-alone dispensing machines without monitoring. This resembles the conditions in production facilities. Manual lubrication processes are based on experience or predefined intervals and not on monitored data whereby failures and downtime cannot be prevented.

To establish a solution for the mentioned issue, a project is carried out with iSYS Software GmbH programming the firm- and software and Werk150. The aim is to develop a smart maintenance system for real-time monitoring of manual lubrication processes in manufacturing. Furthermore, an intelligent grease gun as cyber-physical system is being developed.

 

The following work is carried out by Werk150:

Development of a Data Model

  • Breakdown of precise requirements for the grease gun
  • User stories to illustrate all system functionalities and stakeholders

 

Enabling of Predictive Maintenance Functions

  • Development and implementation of a test bench for data collection
  • Long-term tests under real production conditions
  • Creation of an annotated data set for the training of a predictive maintenance model
  • Validation and optimization of a prediction model based on machine learning

 

Development and Validation of an RFID- and Communication-System for Lubrication Processes

  • Analysis of communication interferences in a production environment
  • Development and implementation of a test bench
  • Analysis of the data and implementation of the lubrification location identification system ready for installation

 

Name of customers:

axiss GmbH Dispensing Systems

Markus Stölzle

Felix-Wankel-Straße 3, 75210 Keltern, Germany

 

 

iSYS Software GmbH

Marc Ponschab

Grillparzerstraße 10, 81675 München, Germany

Funding

  • National specific innovation funding
  • Regional funding

Customers

Number of customers annually
11-25
Type of customers
  • Start-up companies
  • SMEs (<250 employees)
  • MidCaps (between €2-10 billion turnover)

    • Partners

    Last updated: 11/01/21 21:41