Transforming Business Models With Intelligent Assets

In today’s business environment, companies are always looking for ways to differentiate themselves from the competition and improve the customer experience.

For machinery, equipment, and asset manufacturers, this often starts with developing smarter products to capture more information about how they are operating and performing around the globe.

A great example is NETZSCH, a family-owned German company that, since its inception in 1873, has continuously innovated to become a global market leader in manufacturing, selling, and implementing machinery.

As its global customer base grew, NETZSCH’s business unit for pumps and systems needed to improve transparency across its products. The unit was also looking to take advantage of the asset insight and customer service improvements now possible through the Internet of Things (IoT).

Seeking visibility and greater collaboration

With customers all over the world and a growing product portfolio, NETZSCH needed to standardize its asset portal and undergo a digital transformation. Executing meant improving visibility and transparency into pump and component details globally. With access to asset information, the company could increase collaboration across business functions, geographies, and customers and optimize the product portfolio.

NETZSCH deployed an asset intelligence network (AIN) to collect and track equipment information in a central repository. An AIN is a cloud-based business network that facilitates collaborative asset management and lets NETZSCH take full advantage of the IoT.

By digitalizing physical assets and documentation, the pumps and systems unit is increasing visibility into asset and component details — and improving collaboration between employees and with partners. Operators access up-to-date maintenance strategies and manuals from manufacturers — and manufacturers automatically receive asset usage and failure data. The result is even better service and continued customer satisfaction — helping ensure that NETZSCH machinery and devices will be at the heart of innovation for a long time to come.

Increasing insight and customer satisfaction, too

NETZSCH’s AIN enables the company to maintain a global database of assets and track them to better serve the needs of its customers. Playing a key role is digital-twin technology, which delivers a virtual representation of a physical asset for real-time insight into performance. With this technology, NETZSCH has increased visibility into asset and component details, making it possible to provide new services to customers, thus increasing satisfaction.

As Michael Sigl, team lead, IT infrastructure and communications, says: “This new network helps our customers and partners, as well as our company, to be more efficient and reduce the risks of operating equipment.”

Integrated intelligent asset management capabilities are essential to reduce unplanned downtime and improved asset performance. To learn more, download this new white paper from ARC Advisory Group.