SCHUNK goes digital“Digi­tal­iza­tion secures our global compet­i­tive­ness and future viability”

Mr. Gess­mann, the future is digital – what does that mean for SCHUNK?

Timo Gess­mann: We are classic mechan­ical engi­neers. But the topic of digi­tal­iza­tion has driven us since the 1980s and we see it as a great oppor­tu­nity, both for our customers and for ourselves.

On the one hand, our smart prod­ucts and services increase the produc­tivity of our customers, and on the other hand, we increase our effi­ciency and opti­mize our quality through digi­tal­iza­tion. Digi­tal­iza­tion secures our global compet­i­tive­ness and future viability – and also those of our customers.

Which SCHUNK prod­ucts are involved?

The iTENDO² tool­holder, for example, used to be a purely mechan­ical compo­nent. Now it has sensors that make it possible for the first time to obtain in-depth trans­parency from the manu­fac­turing process. The sensors measure, for example, high frequency vibra­tions or accel­er­a­tions in the manu­fac­turing process, and the intel­li­gent tool­holder is able to provide the user with process feed­back up to and including auto­matic opti­miza­tion of the manu­fac­turing para­me­ters. This enables customers to increase their produc­tivity in manu­fac­turing and enhance process reli­a­bility. This is a prereq­ui­site for a higher degree of automa­tion.

An analogy might be a car that uses sensors to measure factors such as speed, distances, posi­tion, etc. when driving and navi­gating, and displays this infor­ma­tion live on digital navi­ga­tion maps. This detailed digital image makes it possible to iden­tify and avoid traffic jams, so drivers can plan ahead and reach their desti­na­tion faster. This infor­ma­tion from the phys­ical and digital worlds is also essen­tial for the gradual imple­men­ta­tion of autonomous driving.

What other advan­tages does the eval­u­a­tion of this sensor data have?

A smart product supple­mented by digital services such as the iTENDO² can be used to predic­tively detect tool wear in auto­mated manu­fac­turing using the sensors. Timely tool changes help avoid rejects and increase produc­tivity.

Another example are our smart gripper appli­ca­tions, which use a camera system and specially devel­oped AI soft­ware to detect which work­pieces are located where, and then use this infor­ma­tion to auto­mat­i­cally imple­ment the appro­priate gripper poses for handling the work­pieces. As a result, customers no longer have to manu­ally program all work­pieces and grip­ping move­ments in advance. This means that automa­tion solu­tions can be imple­mented quickly and easily.

To what extent have the require­ments for prod­ucts changed due to digi­tal­iza­tion?

Digi­tal­iza­tion adds new digital features and services to the func­tions of existing mechan­ical prod­ucts. With our smart prod­ucts and services, we enable our customers to further opti­mize existing appli­ca­tions and processes on the one hand, and to auto­mate completely new process steps on the other. As a result, we are signif­i­cantly expanding the scope of our prod­ucts and services to enable automa­tion in a wide range of appli­ca­tions and indus­tries.

What digital services does SCHUNK offer?

With a free online config­u­rator, we offer customers a tool to design grip­pers, gripper fingers or chuck jaws in real time and have a CAD model created directly. This saves a lot of effort. In addi­tion, our customers online imme­di­ately receive the offer price for the config­ured product and the delivery time. Thanks to the consis­tent digi­tal­iza­tion of our processes from the online config­u­rator to our smart factory, which auto­mat­i­cally manu­fac­tures the corre­sponding product, we are able to deliver in four days, for example.

Digi­tal­iza­tion will continue to evolve in the future and phys­ical prod­ucts will merge increas­ingly with digital services. This leads to a steady increase in produc­tivity while enhancing the user expe­ri­ence through the use of our smart prod­ucts and services!