Click on the Money!

A platform business model has emerged for mechanical engineering: a digital marketplace for efficient online purchasing. It’s called Go2Automation, and now, WEISS has also climbed on board. A digital B2B platform that follows the example of the B2C realm, it delivers major benefits to component producers, system integrators, and machine builders by letting them directly interact with customers while significantly shortening paths and revealing needs faster.

The online era dawned for B2B years ago. And now the digital platform economy is also poised to play a major role in differentiating machine builders. The digital services and business models that it makes available provide three key benefits:

First, the ability to interact more easily via a shared technical platform reduces transaction costs, for example, by matching supply and demand, transferring data, and automating the process of finalizing agreements or making payments. Second, a platform generates economies of scale and facilitates networking, because more participants mean more contacts, larger volumes, and more attractive offers. Third, customers can reap additional benefits as new, cross-border contacts create enormous potential and fresh opportunities that wouldn’t have been possible without the platform. These start with additional (digital) services that are enabled by access to, and analysis of, data and extend across intelligent business models, resulting in more efficient production.

E-Commerce in the Component Business. While B2C transactions are quite straightforward, the situation is much more complex in the mechanical engineering field: the needs of individual production systems vary almost as much as the products that they produce. Systems builders assess their own competencies and offer process-based solutions based on the components and software modules they are familiar with, supplemented in some fields by consulting and knowledge transfer by value-adding partners.

In order to meet new technological requirements and optimize their machines, system builders strike deals with component manufacturers and often with system integrators. Whether it’s about hardware or software, mechatronics or robotics, choosing system components has traditionally required the right decision-makers on both sides to connect at the right time, which can be challenging to arrange. A 24/7 digital platform makes this vastly easier. Established services like Cadenas may enable free downloads of 3D CAD models, along with additional product information for supporting the design process, but they lack both an application orientation and the ability to directly transfer know-how.

The Rise of the Platform Economy. The platform economy, which first appeared for B2B commerce, is about facilitating transactions. It accelerates access to appropriate solutions for optimizing production systems and enables buyers and sellers to find one another more easily online. The expansion of online business is now helping automation specialists sell their products more efficiently and “automatically” boost their competitiveness.

Digital cross-company collaboration, with interactions between providers of automation technology, innovatively facilitates contacts in the field of mechanical engineering while turbocharging supply and demand. By mining available data, applications can reveal product compatibilities, extend the inherent limits of special-purpose solutions as the scope of modularization increases, pare project risks, and promote the development of customer-centric products. Specialized companies and their offerings are involved in everything from initial consultation through to system optimization: a digital ecosystem that greatly facilitates selecting exactly the right components for holistic system solutions.

Online Matching of Component Suppliers and System Integrators. The path is the goal: component producer WEISS has now joined the platform economy, so to speak, as an online strategy for strengthening its digital sales channels. In addition to enhancing the visibility of its own website, the company sees even greater potential for providing appropriate product information to groups targeted by specific applications. Both system integrators and builders of machines and systems can visit Go2Automation to view the possible uses and interfaces of WEISS components in the above-mentioned applications, as well as partnerships, links to example projects, and validation of product solutions: online added value that also strengthens relationships with customers.

WEISS is continuing to roll out its digitalization offensive without neglecting the very important aspect of continuing to deliver value to customers. This collaboration, initiated at an early stage, is based on validated data that shed light on required technical adaptations and interconnections for specific applications. These business relationships focus on state-of-the-art production technology solutions while leaving room for specific project queries, including all of the required experts. Using a portal to pave the way for projects is a new approach that can give system integrators fresh inspiration and access to valuable examples of technical solutions. It opens up new dimensions that extend well beyond digitally offering component models via one’s own website.

From Rotary Indexing Tables to Ring Cakes. How can companies successfully position themselves on a digital platform? What benefits can they derive, and what new models are appearing for successfully doing business? A lighthouse example of a WEISS application presented on Go2Automation uses deep-drawing techniques to produce ring cake molds. The process used to be semi-automated, spanning three presses with a cycle time of 16 seconds. It was highly prone to problems caused by imprecise placement of the metal parts. The challenge was to implement a fully automated pressing line that wouldn’t require any manual intervention.

A handling solution developed by B + R GmbH executes this complex process with all of its integrated systems and components and a cycle time of only 7 seconds: grippers, robots, and a rotary indexing table fully join a deep-drawn body and a conical tube automatically to configure any of a total of eight different mold versions. The challenge for system integrators and machine builders is to learn and derive inspiration from this for their own applications.?Component suppliers like WEISS benefit from how convenient it is to store the modeling data for the TC rotary indexing tables. Specifications, a description, information on compatibility, and information on contacts can all be quickly and easily accessed at any time.

A platform economy like that enabled by Go2Automation brings systems builders together, and the virtual merry-go-round lets the right component manufacturers and integrators join them for the ride. There’s a standing invitation for more to climb on board. As networking activities and the number of applications increase, so does the potential for collective evolution. The shorter paths involved also deserve attention, especially in this day and age.

Under the motto?What's Next??The?TeDo-Publishing House?present a?series?of articles in cooperation with the WEISS Group that focus on the digital transformation. Both internal and external topics are examined in depth. They follow technology- and customer-oriented possible steps of a digitization strategy and show added values for mechanical engineers or end users.?Join us on this exciting journey ... your WEISS Team.