Industry 4.0 made usable

Realizing SEW-EURODRIVE's Industry 4.0 vision

Making Industry 4.0 understandable – putting people first

Industry 4.0 opens up fascinating possibilities: connected machines, autonomous transport vehicles, intelligent production processes. But no matter how powerful the technology, it often goes unused unless it is made understandable for people as users.

The core problem: complex systems are of little use if the operator cannot work with them intuitively. Production staff, maintenance personnel, and decision makers need clear information, simple controls, and transparent processes to fully realize the benefits of the smart factory.

SEW-EURODRIVE GmbH & Co. KG

World-leading provider of drive engineering and automation solutions for industrial manufacturing.

UI Design

UX Design

Gamification

Software Engineering

Prototyping

Project Management

German Design Award Special

This innovative approach convinced not only trade show visitors but also the jury of the German Design Award, who honored the project with the "German Design Award Special".

From Industry 4.0 vision to a usable smart factory

Industry 4.0 has many visions but few tangible implementations. Policymakers paint the big picture, and machine builders perfect their setups – but that alone is not enough. What is missing is an approach that makes these growing technical possibilities accessible to people as users.

SEW-EURODRIVE recognized this gap and worked with us to develop an exhibit for the Hannover Messe: the most user-centered and intuitive Industry 4.0 setup to date. It depicts a smart factory on a minimal footprint – we pair autonomous transport and assembly vehicles (AGVs) and advanced industrial robots with user interfaces that support gesture control, real-time 3D visualization, and augmented reality.

Master, not slave

With this trade show exhibit, we want to show how a product can be manufactured, transported, and stored more efficiently through connected production and intralogistics processes than before. To do this, we create an overall system of intelligent individual elements that coordinate and communicate with each other. Thanks to transparency in these processes, this machine-to-machine communication remains comprehensible to people at all times. They use the machine instead of operating it.

Industry 4.0 made experienceable

For SEW-EURODRIVE's trade show presence, complex technology was designed to be intuitively understandable and interactively experienceable. A purpose-built 3D viewer lets users playfully discover the structure and function of an AGV – reduced to a few well-considered interactions, combined with high-quality renderings and fluid animations.

People are at the center of the whole concept: by combining interactivity, intelligent automation, and user-centered design, Industry 4.0 is not just explained but made tangible.

Good things come to those who hurry

A production day begins with prioritizing orders. Which order is the most urgent? Are all the resources needed for the product available?

At the control panel, we bring together all the information users need to make a quick decision. This gives them an intelligent, permanently up-to-date schedule in front of them. They barely need to modify it – but if they want to, a single, quick tap is all it takes.

The next production step: a new product has to be assembled by a worker for the first time. This is easier even for trained staff when they do not first have to read cumbersome instructions.

Turning a mountain into a molehill

The AGVs used in the trade show setup normally travel through large production halls. Those dimensions are not available at the Hannover Messe. So we have to show, on a station with a footprint of just 12m², how industrial intralogistics processes can be improved in facilities covering several thousand square meters.

Enhanced reality

Cameras on the ceiling track the movement of the AGVs and storage containers holding the product. This works just as well in the small setup as it would in a large production hall.

At the intralogistics station's control panel, users can see at any time, thanks to augmented reality, where their goods are located – 3D models and additional information are rendered live into the video stream from the ceiling cameras.

A simple tap on the screen opens an info box: when was the product last moved? How many items of the same type are still in stock? This lets users retrieve information about the product that would otherwise be inaccessible to them – even if they walked over to the corresponding container. This saves nerves, time, and legwork.

Accident? Secured.

What now? A robot has failed in the warehouse and is blocking storage of our product. The situation calls for quick action – but in a complex warehouse system, that same speed could just as easily cause further errors.

With the intralogistics station's control panel, we place great importance on enabling direct, robust intervention in the supply chain. That is why users can turn the information that comes together here into action recommendations, and put them straight into decisions if they choose to. The panel protects them along the way with concrete guidance against operating errors – for example, by suggesting safe alternative routes for the AGVs.

Freedom of information

What is the resource most often lacking in production processes? Information. We believe the right information needs to be available in the right place. That is why users of our setup can simply pull live AGV data onto their smartphones or tablets with a touch. Maintenance staff in the factory no longer have to walk to every device for simple maintenance steps, gaining a new kind of freedom as a result.

At the Hannover Messe, visitors can step into the role of maintenance staff themselves. "Bring Your Own Device" (BYOD) works like this here: unlock your phone, log into the Wi-Fi, and get full access to the AGV's live data through the browser of your choice – just like that.