Outcomes, Insights, and Best Practices from IIC Testbeds: Track & Trace Testbed
is experimenting around the business model
itself, not just the technologies.
is the increased utilization and the cost
savings and increased efficiency derived
from this improvement.
The testbed team is now evaluating a
business model where the customer
appreciates the value of the solution and the
partners are designing how they will
approach the market together. Who do they
need as partners in this business? How will
their business model change in the future?
These business model discussions and
realizations run in parallel with the
technology solution.
This technology works for every piece of
moving equipment close to a plant and its
surroundings. In related open space
environments, such as parking spaces with
vehicles moving around in a dedicated
environment, geo-transmitting on larger
parking spaces may be a potential use case.
Challenges, Innovations and Achievements
One significant challenge for the Track and
Trace Testbed was identifying the right
localization technologies for the right use
cases. Now the team is using the correct
range from ultrasound high precision tools
for wide-band to inertial technology to ELE
and Wi-Fi-based triangulation, and so on.
This is a very important element of the
testbed – they are now mapping these
different variable technologies for different
use cases and wrapping them in a generic
API to replace different localization
technologies. Also of critical importance is
the fact that the team was able to very
quickly bring together this ecosystem of
partners to support these innovations.
From Bosch’s perspective, from inside the
plant and from business partners, there is a
great deal of interest in this topic. From a
business perspective, there appears to be
huge potential in the market for this
solution. That is why Bosch and SAP are
pushing together to bring this solution to the
market.
Management’s primary focus is commercial
interest: Leverage the solution blueprint that
emerged from the different installations,
multiply this to eventually develop a
standard product offering around this
solution blueprint and jointly take this to
market and expand the sales.
In the Trace side of the testbed, value has
certainly been gained, including process
improvement, quality improvement, safety
and security. The processes the testbed
team has planned to enhance through the
testbed are often very product-specific. One
of the next steps is to quantify the business
benefits with the customers.
In the aircraft manufacturer deployment,
the open aircraft body posed another
challenge to the factory tools tracking side of
the testbed. Wireless communication to the
outside of the aircraft was required, yet the
aircraft body prevents standard wireless
communication through the sides of the
plane. To enable multiple tools to be
connected inside of the aircraft body, the
team developed a peer-to-peer type of
communication. There were also numerous
challenges related to specific tools: For
The Track side of the testbed has received
very positive user feedback which has aided
in the evolution of the testbed. The main
business value derived from this deployment
46
June 2017