Mechanical and plant engineering is an important industry, many well-paid jobs depend on it in Europe. To be competitive in the long term, it needs knowledge of production processes, physics and digital tools for new business models. European machines sell all over the world. However, margins are low and often one-off. Mechanical engineering needs new, recurring revenue streams (software licenses), new differentiators. With Nupano from Lenze, machine builders get connected to the rapid development in the IT industry and use modern technologies in their domain - even without programming knowledge. This gives machine builders a competitive advantage over companies from other regions of the world and enables them to develop new customers and markets.

Jumping over innovation hurdles

Friedhelm Drünker is head of development at a med-sized mechanical engineering company. He has just advertised three development positions. Number of applications? One. Too few for the tasks that await him and his team. They want to offer their customers service applications for their machines in order to differentiate themselves from the competition and, in particular, to contribute to sustainability. Drünker is thinking specifically about an AI-based app, to optimize the energy efficiency of his machines. At the same time, he is at a loss as to how he can equip a series machine with a variety of apps while ensuring that he only combines compatible versions.

The development manager is certain that his mechanical engineering company will disappear from the market if he does not differentiate himself on the market through software services. Drünker informs himself: "The majority answer in the automation industry to generating new revenue streams in the face of an intensifying shortage of skilled workers is called platform. Supposedly open platforms, marketplaces and ecosystems are emerging among many providers. There is a colorful confusion of definitions. What all "platforms" on the market have in common is that they do not solve Drünker's problem. Because these platforms do not allow him to integrate his own additional services into the machine that differentiate him from the competition.

Then Drünker discovers the open automation platform Nupano. It enables him to bring innovation to the machine and tap the potential of digitization at the machine level. Even a team without IT knowledge can now equip a machine over its entire lifecycle, with digital services from a client-specific apps store. The platform takes over the management of any number of apps, including their versions, on a growing installed base.

Nupano solves Drünker's problem, which is representative of the mechanical and plant engineering industry here. Lenze has jumped three innovation hurdles: An innovative method for integrating IT into a machine (OT), a new method for managing software in mechanical engineering, and a novel secure pairing method.