By Jürg Meierhofer, ZHAW

Data Science, machine learning, artificial intelligence etc. are hot topics and deserve undisputedly a lot of attention. However, we always need to pay attention to whether and how we create value for the diverse actors in the ecosystem. For businesses, this means of course primarily economic value, but by far not only. Data-driven solutions also need to address other value dimensions of individuals, e.g., social or emotional values. This discipline of  “Smart Service Engineering” provides us with a set of tools and applicable procedures to achieve this. In the CAS Smart Service Engineering / Data Product Design, we work with these tools and directly apply them to case studies that are self-chosen by groups of participants.

Data Science, Machine Learning, Künstliche Intelligenz etc. sind hoch aktuelle Themen und verdienen unbestritten viel Aufmerksamkeit. Wir müssen jedoch immer darauf achten, ob und wie wir Wert für die verschiedenen Akteure im Ökosystem schaffen. Für Unternehmen bedeutet das natürlich in erster Linie betriebswirtschaftlichen Wert, aber bei weitem nicht nur. Datengetriebene Lösungen müssen auch andere Wertdimensionen von Individuen adressieren, z. B. soziale oder emotionale Werte. Die Disziplin des “Smart Service Engineerings” stellt uns dafür eine Reihe von Werkzeugen und direkt anwendbaren Methoden zur Verfügung. Im CAS Smart Service Engineering / Data Product Design arbeiten wir mit diesen Methoden und wenden sie direkt auf Fallstudien an, die von Teilnehmendengruppen selbst ausgewählt werden.

After three months of course, we had the wonderful opportunity to take our well-prepared case studies to the very inspiring environment of the castle of Thun, where we were made very welcome by our host Fabrizio Laneve, who is the lively and energetic manager of the Mobiliar Forum Thun. Brilliantly moderated by Ina Goller, the groups successfully further developed the value creation by their smart service concepts – with a strong focus on value creation in the ecosystem, considering all relevant actors. Thanks to these two consecutive days of workshop, accompanied by a nice dinner and an overnight stay in the castle, we not only brought our service concepts significantly further, but also learned a lot about methodology and additionally, very much strengthened our team spirit.

Nach drei Monaten hatten wir die wunderbare Gelegenheit, unsere gut aufbereiteten Fallstudien in die sehr inspirierende Umgebung des Schlosses Thun zu bringen, wo wir von unserem Gastgeber Fabrizio Laneve, dem sehr aktiven und inspirirenden Manager des Mobiliar Forums Thun, sehr herzliche empfangen wurden. Brillant moderiert von Ina Goller entwickelten die Gruppen die Wertschöpfung durch ihre Smart-Service-Konzepte erfolgreich weiter – mit einem starken Fokus auf die Wertschöpfung im Ökosystem unter Berücksichtigung aller relevanten Akteure. Dank dieser zwei aufeinanderfolgenden Workshop-Tage, begleitet von einem schönen Abendessen und einer Übernachtung im Schloss, haben wir nicht nur unsere Servicekonzepte deutlich weiterentwickelt, sondern auch viel über die Methodik gelernt und zusätzlich unseren Teamgeist deutlich gestärkt.

By Markus Christen, UZH, Christoph Heitz, ZHAW and Karin Lange, La Mobilière

Together with the DSI Community Ethics, the Data Ethics expert group has organized a public event on the new “Digital Trust Label” of the Swiss Digital Initiative. About 20 persons have discussed advantages and challeges of this new label.

Beginning of this year, the Swiss Digital Initiative (SDI) launched the “Digital Trust Label”; the first of its kind worldwide. The label is intended to promote the trustworthiness of digital applications. Doris Leuthard, former Federal Councillor and SDI President, compares the Digital Trust Label with the trust seal of an organic label or a nutritional value table. According to Leuthard, the SDI has big goals for the label: it should become the new Swiss export hit.

But can the Digital Trust Label deliver what it promises? Niniane Paeffgen from the SDI has outlined in her presentation, how the label has been developed and what comanies need to fulfill in order to get the label. In a lively discussion under the moderation of Markus Christen (DSI), Sophia Ding (Managing Consultant AWK Group) and André Golliez (Swiss Data Alliance) have discussed the challenges of the new label. André Golliez pointed to possible intransparencies in how exactly the label is awarded to companies and argued that the current legal framework such as the EU Data Protection Regulation may be sufficient. Sophia Ding on the other hand argued, that the label is an opportunity for companies to obtain more internal clarity on ethical practices. After the formal part, discussions continued informally at the DSI.

At the event, Christoph Heitz also pointed to the next event of the Expert Group, organized jointly with the DSI and Economiesuisse: An event about the role of data ethics for a sustainable data economy. The event will take place on Thursday September 29 at the DSI.

By Jürg Meierhofer, ZHAW

In the afternoon of June 8, the Expert Group Smart Services gathered at Kistler in Winterthur. After the very friendly welcome by the Kistler team, we got insightful presentations about the digitalization initivatives at Kistler and, specifically, Kistler’s way of digitalizing service with a focus on pilot projects in various fields of advanced services. These presentations were rounded up by a presentation of a turn-key solution by the Kistler Innovation Lab. Many thanks to Marc Schaad, Philipp Schenkel, and Thomas Wuhrmann for their presentations.

The presentations were followed by a tour around the company in break-out groups and an apéro. We had the opportunity to develop many new contacts and inspire ideas that we will follow up on. It was an excellent Expert Group event and we got the feedback of many participants that we should follow up with similar activities.

By Melanie Geiger, data innovation alliance

Report-back on the 5th Conference on Industry Perspectives: 4.0 Synergies and Opportunities for the Circular Economy

When academic brilliance and popular enthusiasm meet, it results in the recent ZHAW conference, “5. Konferenz Perspektiven mit Industrie 4.0 Synergien und Chancen für die Kreislaufwirtschaft”, where an economy that works together with the environment is the future. After all, that, in a nutshell, is what circular economy (CE) is about.

The morning was packed with engaging presentations on an abundance of circularity aspects revolving around:

● Manufacturing and production
● Material and raw materials
● Logistics
● Utilization
● Support and service

The Tool manufacturer FRAISA presented the possibilities of digital individualization in optimizing tool utilization. Using their method, tools can be “restored”, leading to a reduction in energy consumption, as well as in materials and logistics costs. This provides a basis for a sustainable economic system.

After lunch (and plenty of networking), the 80 participants divided up into 8 discussion tables, intensively identifying and analyzing current challenges in Industry and the Circular Economy. Key challenges which lead to resource waste in Logistics were poorly packed or empty return-shipping containers were highlighted. The NTN Innovation Booster Databooster and NTN Innovation Booster Applied Circular Sustainability jointly organized the interactive session.

Kündig, a provider of industrial sanding machines, offers remote fault diagnosis and support to their customers in order to reduce travel time and resource requirements. Another excellent example is REMONDIS Digital Services, which globally offers interested parties such as cities and municipalities an innovative solution: road and environmental data on demand! As a fleet operator of waste collection vehicles, REMONDIS Digital drives along all the streets of a city at regular intervals whereby in doing so, their vehicles collect data on the road environment in an automated, data protection-compliant and demand-oriented manner, down to the very last nook and cranny. They can achieve this by using optical sensors together with artificial intelligence.

With all these innovative ideas for making Industry more sustainable, we had the opportunity to explore new possibilities through networking and intense discussion, finally ending with an enjoyable apéro. Thank you to all the participants!

Erfolgreiche 5. Konferenz Perspektiven mit Industrie 4.0 Synergien und Chancen für die Kreislaufwirtschaft 1. Juni 2022, Winterthur

By Jürg Meierhofer, ZHAW

Die Kreislaufwirtschaft ist der vielversprechende Weg von Industrie, Gesellschaft und Politik, um Ressourcen zu schonen und ein nachhaltiges Wirtschafssystem aufzubauen. Richtig gestaltet, leisten Technologien und Methoden der Industrie 4.0 einen wichtigen Beitrag dafür. Dank ihnen können die Unternehmen Energie-, Material- und Logistikaufwände minimieren. Sie sind Wegbereiter für lückenlose Nachverfolgbarkeit von Materialien und Bauteilen, Zustandsüberwachung und Predictive Maintenance, Remote-Services für weltweit verteilte Anlagen und neue digitale Businessmodelle.

In der Konferenz «Perspektive mit Industrie 4.0» wurden Lösungen von industriellen Unternehmen präsentiert, die pionierhaft und mustergültig sind. Sie dienen damit als Musterbeispiele nachhaltiger Gestaltung von Industrie 4.0 für zahlreiche andere Unternehmen. Der Tag zeigte insgesamt einen eindrucksvollen Stand der Entwicklung auf, von denen unten anekdotisch nur ein paar Stichworte festgehalten sind. Insbesondere wurde deutlich, dass nachhaltige Lösungen basierend auf  Digitalisierung nicht in ferner Zukunft kommen, sondern schon sehr nahe sind und dank diesen Leuchtturm-Beispielen heute schon verfügbar sind.

Begleitet wurden die Referaten von einem Ideation-Workshop, der von den beiden Innosuisse geförderten Innovation Boostern “applied circular sustainability” und “databooster” gestaltet und moderiert wurde. Dabei kam echte Co-Creation unter den Teilnehmenden mit zahlreichen Projektideen, die nach der Konferenz fortgesetzt werden sollen.

Impressionen, Bildgalerie:
https://www.zhaw.ch/de/engineering/institute-zentren/idp/forschungsthemen/data-driven-service-engineering/5-konferenz-perspektiven-mit-industrie-40/

Stichworte zu den Referaten:
Paarigkeit in optimierten Verkehrsströmen (Joe Petitjean, Planzer Synergetics), Nachhaltigkeit dank Services, z.B. virtuelles Training (Michael Braun und Lukas Bruhns, KVD), individualisierte Werkzeugaufbereitung (“Jedes Werkzeug hat einen Identität / einen Personalausweis”) (Thomas Wittig, FRAISA), papierlose Prozesse und optimierte Stoffkreisläufe (Konrad Pfadenhauer, Concircle Schweiz), Wertschöpfung im Produktlebenszyklus durch konsequente Fokussierung auf den Use Case (Alexander Gafner, Cognizant), Begleitung von KMU im Innovationsprozess (Markus Müller, Kanton Zürich), Chancen in der MEM-Branche vor dem Hintergrund anstehender Regulierungen (Chris Roth, Swissmem), Kreislaufprozess für Ersatzteile (Robert Keller, Bizerba), Kundennähe durch Fernzugriff (Raphael Golder, Kündig), Abfall wird digital (Kristin Doppelreiter, REMONDIS), urbane Kreislauflogistik auf der Schiene (Katharina Wachs, SBB Cargo).

By Markus Konz, SwissRe and Jürg Meierhofer, ZHAW

At 31^st May SwissRe’s Specialty unit hold an ideation workshop to sharpen its digital strategy for the core business supported by databooster. Data-driven underwriting and automation were the key elements of the lively discussions. The participants represented business and technology units to bring views together and ensure a 360° perspective for the digital strategy. Jürg Meierhofer (ZHAW) and Markus Konz (SwissRe) moderated the workshop and guided the participants through the design thinking framework which enabled the team to stay focused and come up with a very concrete picture of the requirements to transfer into a digital future.

The workshop was a full success and the outcome got turned into concrete action plan for the coming 3 years. It was great to see how a well-orchestrated design thinking workshop with highly motivated and competent experts could deliver tangible results for a deeply informed strategy and roadmap in only half a day.

By Stefan Keller, Reik Leiterer, Nicolas Lenz

When it comes to predictions, we should always be careful. But Synthetic Data Generation is certainly one of the trend topics. Gartner is not the only one to say that this technology will become established in the next few years.

On April 13, 2022, the Expert Group “Spatial Data Analytics” met in Zurich on the topic of “Geospatial Synthetic Data” in-person and virtually. In the modern premises of the Gleisarena, provided by the FFHS, the host, Aldo Lamberti of Syntheticus.ai, presented three top-class talks to the 20 participants. The following is a brief summary.

The Spatial Data Analytics Expert Group is a nice place to share ideas. It’s part of the data innovation alliance which is instrumental in making Switzerland a recognized hub for data-driven value creation.

Aldo Lamberti began with a presentation on “How to securely collaborate and compute on synthetic geo data”. Syntheticus envisions a world in which the full potential of data is realized, while at the same time preserving fundamental privacy rights. Synthetic data is the solution. Synthetic data mimics real data while preserving the utility of data and protecting privacy – it is poised to revolutionize the way the world realizes the full potential of data. Public and private entities around the world trust us to unlock and monetize untapped data without violating compliance. They are setting new standards by securely collaborating and processing Syntheticus data across the entire data value chain. Syntheticus provides an SaaS platform for enterprises to generate synthetic data at scale while maintaining privacy.

Jakob Dambon of SwissRe spoke on “Spatial and Spatio-Temporal Statistics, Using Both Frequency and Bayesian Approaches.” He explained that one of the best known regression methods is Ordinary Least Squares (OLS). It is easy to model and interpret. However, when dealing with spatial data, the model assumptions are usually no longer valid. More specifically, observations that are close together are more dependent than observations that are far apart. This is where geostatistical methods come into play. These methods attempted to explain the remaining dependencies using, for example, a Gaussian process. These processes capture the dependence on the observations over distance in their covariance function. Finally, using geostatistical methods, he modeled the covariates as a fixed external trend while allowing the intercept to vary over space.

Josef Boesze of itopia ag spoke about “Developing and Testing without any Risks or Side Effects using iSynth”. itopia – as a boutique IT consulting firm for the financial world – has long suspected that testing based on production data – even when anonymized – leads to risks and undesirable side effects. Moreover, machine learning and Big Data analytics have become the natural enemies of solutions based on anonymized data. In his opinion, it’s time for a change. The alternative is synthetic data. However, until now, generating synthetic data was too costly, the results were not satisfactory, or it was simply not practical. Efficient and risk-free development, testing and training is now possible thanks to consistent synthetic test data. itopia offers an agile and object-oriented approach as well as suitable test data factory tools for projects and DevOps.

After a lively discussion, the participants present went out for pizza together at a nearby casual industrial-style venue. The food and drinks were kindly sponsored by ExoLabs. While networking, the next host was also already determined. This means that we can look forward to more interesting meetings!