Energized by change

From the internet to our smart phones to ATMs, digital products are already an indispensable part of our world – in our personal lives, as well as in our businesses. So much so, that we wonder how we ever managed without them.

At Bosch Rexroth, we want to make the most of the world of digital opportunities that’s opening up, both in our offering to our customers and within our own business. For example, we’ve been expanding our range with more software and digitized products, focusing on data flow, transparency and ease of use. This way, our customers can decide how they want to implement our solutions and dictate the pace of change that works best for their business.

And our customers are seeing the benefits. Whether it’s the enhanced visibility of their processes, more efficiency, more sustainability, greater productivity or less downtime, the results are evident. Digitalization is helping our customers to address some of the big issues that matter to them and enabling them to gain a competitive advantage.

However, this is just the start of the journey. As we move forward and develop new solutions, we must continue to recognize the digital opportunities that will help our customers to succeed. In doing so, we’ll be a trusted partner to them – now, next and beyond.

What fascinates me about digital technology is that so many things are interconnected with it. It’s not just about the technology itself. It’s also about the positive impact on society. At the core is how we choose to use this technology to make life better and improve society. At Bosch Rexroth, we’re particularly interested in how it can transform our customers’ businesses, as well as our own.

But in order to implement change in an organization, you need to get everybody on board. It’s important to understand our customers and our associates, what drives them and how they want to use technology to improve their businesses and work life. That’s part of the challenge – but it’s also what makes it so rewarding.

One of the things that is so powerful about digital technology is that it gives us access to a level of data – and therefore information – that we didn’t have before. So I’m particularly interested in how we can help our customers make good use of that data. By gathering information from along the lifecycle of a product or process, you can discover how to further improve it – and you can support and enhance every part of the lifecycle. One digital technology that relates to data and is particularly transformative for our industry is the digital twin. This is a virtual replica of a machine, process, system or even a production line.

By equipping machines with sensors, operational data can be collected that relates to the machine and even the conditions across the whole factory. With a digital twin, you then have complete transparency and can see how the different components in a production process work together. Having this level of information at your fingertips opens up huge opportunities for analysis and optimization.

Manufacturers can increase productivity, reduce lead times, lower costs and make improvements to their production processes. In short, they can make changes that will contribute significantly to the success of their business. That’s why data and the digital twin are such game-changers for our customers.

So obviously we’re keen to harness the power of this technology. One of the issues is taking the valuable data – which is often hidden in widely distributed data silos and is difficult to access – and making it easily accessible and easy to understand. Our approach is to provide all data in a consistent way, then our customers can decide how they want to use it.

There are several, but one example would be our automation toolkit, ctrlX AUTOMATION. When our colleagues designed it, the team really went back to the drawing board and approached the project from a completely new angle – looking at what our customers would need going forward, instead of what traditional platforms had looked like in the past. It’s a great example of how, as a company, we can be bold and embrace change when developing new solutions.

ctrlX AUTOMATION is the most open automation system on the market, so it gives our customers the freedom to customize it to their requirements. It even has its own partner network called ctrlX World and has initiated a new ecosystem in the industry. Partners contribute their own strengths and solutions via co-creation. This means users get a wide choice of apps and benefit from the constantly growing offering. It’s a great example of how we’re developing solutions, not just for today, but with an eye on the future.