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ivii is one of the top 3 at the state digitization awards 2019.

At the 4GAMECHANGERS festival, which will take place April 9–11, 2019, in the Marx Halle in Vienna, the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) will award the 2019 state prize for digitization. Projects have been submitted in the categories Digital products and solutions, Digital transformation and Artificial intelligence. Our solution, ivii.smartdesk has achieved a place in the top 3 in the category Digital transformation.

The state prize for digitization awarded by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Digitization and Business Location (BMDW) will recognize outstanding digital products, services and applications presented at the 2019 4GAMECHANGERS festival.

Key issues will range from digital cultural heritage, games, e-mobility, e-government, e-health, e-commerce to cloud-based enterprise services and FinTech solutions.

We were shortlisted last week with our product ivii.smartdesk to be one of the contenders in the next round of the state competition in the category Digital transformation.

The submitted projects were judged based on the following five criteria:

Novelty and degree of innovation
Technical and creative implementation
Benefits for users
Usability
Market potential

The digital transformation has begun

With our ivii.smartdesk, we have launched an innovative work station with 100 % quality assurance. Precise quality checks, easy-to-use software and feedback on work processes delivered just in time are what make the ivii.smartdesk extraordinary. The ivii.smartdesk turns the demand for 100 % quality without compromising performance into a reality.

4GAMECHANGERS festival, April 9–11, 2019

The 4GAMECHANGERS festival is an international digital festival for influencers, rebels, visionaries and as its name suggests, game changers. It’s an innovative mixture between an expert conference, trade fair, entertainment court and a music festival. The 4GAMECHANGERS spirit connects people who want to change the world and those who already have.

Come and see us at our stand on April 9. We look forward to seeing you there!

More Information about the Event in our Eventkalender.

Get more Content about ivii.smartdesk here.

More information about the state prize here.

Quality takes top priority

In the age of digitalization, companies are constantly striving to balance quality, performance and costs. Jerich International is investing in the future and enhancing their picking work stations with image processing technology by ivii – all the while keeping the focus on the person. Herbert Jerich Jr., Juliane Jerich and Wolfgang Ferk talk about quality assurance in the automotive logistics.

Jerich International and the KNAPP Group, to which ivii belongs, are both family-run companies operating internationally. What do they have in common?

Herbert Jerich: Both companies strive to find the optimal logistics solution, with Jerich International focussing on the supply chain and KNAPP on tailor-made warehouse logistics solutions.

Wolfgang Ferk: Open, cordial and informal interaction with all employees is very important both for KNAPP and Jerich. Both companies maintain a strong focus on sustainability and innovation in their respective fields.

In conversation with Wolfgang Ferk, Juliane Jerich and Herbert Jerich Junior

Hashtag innovation: Within the KNAPP Group, ivii is the specialist in image processing. Why is this technology interesting to Jerich?

Quality is our top priority. We are an OEM supplier and our quality-check employees work eight hours a day, applying the six eyes principle when checking the vehicle body parts. Lack of concentration for just a moment, fatigue or distraction can lead to errors. We can accept 3 errors by the employees – for about 100,000 parts a year – otherwise, we would risk losing our important status as an A supplier. In the worst-case scenario we might even loose our supplier accreditation. The wrong vehicle body part is just as much an error as a barcode that has been mistakenly covered. We were looking for the system that most closely resembles the human eye – the digital eye – to fulfil these high-quality requirements and to reduce the strain on our employees. That’s how we arrived at the image processing system of ivii.

High quality requirements and reducing employee strain were the focus of the project. How did ivii approach this task?

W. Ferk: We cooperatively developed a concept in several stages. The solution consists of a smart work station equipped with the ivii system and situated in the goods-out area. Jerich is currently testing a prototype of this ivii.smartdesk. Later, there will be an optimization period for clearly defining processes and for sharpening the image recognition precision, also focussing on ergonomics and design.

What have you already observed using the ivii.smartdesk?

Juliane Jerich: Process optimization has clearly progressed. We were able to reduce the six eyes principle to a two eyes principle. The employees can now focus on different activities in the process for which up to now no resources have been available. The table also looks great! Working with new technologies motivates our employees. The technological advantage enables us to gain more customers; the quality provided by the system offers our customers one hundred percent security.

On humans and automation: Do your employees perceive the system as surveillance or support?

J. Jerich: Initially, our employees were a little sceptical about the cameras. But as soon as they realized that the system is actually a support for them, these worries subsided. The new activities are a big motivation for our employees. The picker’s responsibilities are various: placing the parts on the work station in the correct position, operating the system correctly, registering new parts of the article range and teaching them to the system. Without the human input, the system would be worthless.

Let’s look ahead: What do you expect from the completion of this project?

H. Jerich: I want to be the innovation leader with the warehouse of the future never before seen by the automation industry – that’s why we are investing. Next year we are building a 15,000 m² warehouse with innovative work stations and robots supporting our employees. Here I’ll be able to show my customers the future-oriented manner in which we work. With KNAPP and ivii, we have found a competent partner to realize these aims.

"Working with new technologies motivates our employees.", Juliane Jerich

"Quality takes top priority.", Herbert Jerich Junior

About workplace design in the future: What would a future workplace by ivii look like? Which industry sectors would profit the most?

W. Ferk: At the end of the day, it is all about optimizing the daily routine, regardless of the sector or technology. The employee is supported by technology but is still the operative agent. There is no better employee than the human, so why not give them relief from heavy lifting, support them with robots and give them different tasks to do? Visual systems by ivii provide an ergonomically designed workplace for the employees where physical effort is reduced using intelligent image processing solutions. Quality requirements in the distribution and automation sectors are not decreasing, quite the contrary! That’s why technological support for the employee makes sense. Robot and human are not working against each other but hand in hand, preparing for the future.

Gamification is often named as one of the trends in future workplace design. What do you see as the significance of gamification in employee motivation?

W. Ferk: Gamification is a trend we considered when designing the workplace for one of our customers in the USA. The playful approach brightens the daily work routine.

How do you motivate your employees at Jerich International?

H. Jerich: In our company, the playful approach is not that important in the production sector. The employees are motivated by the new responsibility they get when using the ivii.smartdesk. Personally, I don’t think that a playful approach is important at work. The productivity of each individual employee, however, should be encouraged. We motivate our employees by organizing different activities, team-buildings and customer events.

J. Jerich: At the end of the day, our quality depends on our employees. We depend on the performance of our employees and want to ensure that they are doing well. The company climate is relevant to employee commitment, reflected by the fact that, in urgent cases, it’s no big deal for employees to work a little overtime. Appreciation and teamwork are essential elements which characterize us as a family-run company. Communication as equals is also an important value.

Why is image processing a trending topic for the future?

W. Ferk: Image processing is becoming more and more important to the automation and intralogistics sectors. With optical systems, we can support the employees during their work. The algorithm of our Vision systems can always be applied, regardless how many hours a day. Fatigue and the likelihood of confusion or distractions that may lead to errors are completely eliminated by the Vision systems. Features that were only detectable by the human eye can now be checked using image processing algorithms.

Smartcam für Qualitätssicherung — Smartcam for quality assurance

Deep learning is another significant trend in the image processing sector: The number of parts to be checked only increases the longer a Vision system is in use. After a while, it’s simply too much work to teach in the parts manually. This is the point where Deep Learning comes into play: Based on experience and the photos of parts it has already learned, the intelligent algorithm knows where to allocate the new part. The ivii system learns based on the values from its past experience.

The ivii.smartdesk provides a 100 % quality check during the picking process.ivii.smartdesk is successfully in action at our client Pankl. See the full solution of ivii for Pankl here.

The requirements placed on production today are immense. Costs should be cut, but not at the expense of productivity, which should be increased. At the same time, quality should be guaranteed to 100 %. Smart production is becoming more and more realistic and is one of the future trends in the development of the global economy. The relationship between workers, machines and services is becoming increasingly intense.

But the interconnection of the production environments is not the only thing we’re witnessing – the production lifecycles are also getting shorter and shorter. In some sectors, as well as the automobile industry, we have pretty much reached single-item lots. We as customers expect to receive individual products at mass-good prices and are almost never willing to pay more for personalized articles. This has a huge impact on production workers – every product changes every single day, with zero error tolerance.

But when is production truly smart?

Is there more to this catchphrase than just a marketing slogan? Here at ivii, we believe that production is smart when it can respond flexibly to customers’ wishes, when the worker is the main focus of the process and when technologies are used to bring knowledge into companies.

The employee must receive the right information at the right time, in the right location, quality and quantity. They must be able to see themselves as part of the bigger picture and see the consequences of their actions.

In this case, the ivii solutions indicate which components need to be installed while also guaranteeing that they are installed correctly. This again assures the employee that they are carrying out their work without any errors, meaning they don’t have to waste time rectifying mistakes and they can fully concentrate on the task at hand.

This ivii solution has been implemented at Pankl Racing Systems AG.

Smart production at Pankl

Pankl requires 100 % quality checking within the assembly process.
Pankl Racing Systems AG, which is headquartered in Kapfenberg, Austria, opted for an intelligent image processing solution integrated in the quality assurance process. And now they’re ready for the future.

Pankl High Performance Systems is a new division of Pankl Racing AG and produces high-quality drivetrains for motorcycle racing.
In 2016, a state-of-the-art production facility was built in Kapfenberg to manufacture the high-performance KTM drivetrains.

The prerequisite: A drivetrain every three minutes

Drivetrains are components of KTM motorcycles that contribute to both performance and quality. The solution had to guarantee maximum quality and end-to-end traceability.

The solution: ivii.smartdesk

Pankl chose the intelligent assistance system ivii.smartdesk to achieve its ambitious goals. The solution enables a 100 % quality check to take place during the assembly process. The image recognition and image processing system of the ivii.smartdesk records every component used during assembly. The check is started at the press of a single button. Thanks to a real-time feedback system, personnel receive an immediate evaluation of the quality of the step taken. As a result, a zero-error strategy is in place to ensure accurate production. The production facilities at Pankl were equipped with four ivii.smartdesk solutions.

Red means: Error. The possible error is displayed on the monitor and can be rectified immediately.

The worker is always the focus

We support employees as part of smart production in their day-to-day work.

Our solution assures them that they have carried out each of their work steps correctly. The ivii.smartdesk does not require employees to complete any training, which makes it easy to integrate in the existing work process. This again assures the employee that they are carrying out their work without any errors, meaning they don’t have to waste time rectifying mistakes and they can fully concentrate on the task at hand. We make sure to always focus on the worker.

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ivii is one of the top 3 at the state digitization awards 2019