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Customer application 18 May 2022

Added Value out of the Box

With its IoT box, Liebherr has devised an infrastructure that creates added value from production data for many application areas. The core is a WAGO Controller: The PFC200 enables the connection of any system and machinery. This ensures maximum flexibility. With this new infrastructure, Liebherr can optimize existing processes and set up new business models – while being prepared for future opportunities and challenges.

Welding robots are an indispensable manufacturing technology for Liebherr-Hydraulikbagger GmbH. The company from Kirchdorf an der Iller (Upper Swabia) is the world's market leader in mobile excavators. But they can do even more: The robots, like all industrial systems and machines, also produce many kinds of data. Drawing on this source makes it possible to increase value creation and efficiency – not only in manufacturing, but also in many other fields of activity, in financial controlling and maintenance, as well as in IT management or purchasing.

However, this assumes that the relevant data can be read from the systems and machines, consolidated, analyzed and linked to other data. Liebherr IT-Services GmbH has now created a powerful, scalable infrastructure for all these tasks: a compact, modular IoT box, which, when installed near the respective system or machine, receives the data via a network cable, processes it on site, evaluates it and makes it available to higher-level systems such as PLM or MES.

“Both IoT box hardware and software are characterized by their extreme flexibility,” explains Torben Handeck, Head of Programming and Welding at Liebherr-Hydraulikbagger GmbH. “We can connect any systems and machines there. With the data collected, it is then possible to perform the diverse analyses that provide us with valuable knowledge for all possible tasks.”

“Problem Solver for a Wide Range of Specialty Areas”

This makes the IoT box a “problem solver in a wide range of specialty areas,” says Handeck, “regardless of the perspective from which one looks at a system or machine.” As a concrete example, he cites the welding wire drums that supply welding robot systems with material. “We can now retrofit a scale and attach it to the IoT box. The employees at the system thus have a clear view of how much wire is still in the drums so that they can provide supplies in time,” explains the expert. However, it would also be possible to make the consumption data available to the purchasing department in an automated manner. This reduces the workload of our colleagues in production.

In addition, the IoT box can create a completely new business model for this task. “We could give the data to a service provider who then ensures that the system is reliably supplied with sufficient welding wire without the employees having to work in the production or purchasing department,” explains Handeck. “This way provides considerable efficiency!”

With the IoT box, Liebherr can not only optimize existing processes. At the same time, the company is preparing itself for future opportunities and challenges. With this infrastructure, Liebherr-Hydraulikbagger GmbH and the other Liebherr plants now have an IT basis on which to develop and implement future business models that nobody is thinking of today.