Rebecca Gibson |
Accenture has opened a new industrial internet of things (IIoT) innovation centre in Garching, Germany to help clients design and prototype innovative digital solutions that improve engineering, manufacturing, production and customer experiences.
Set up as an industrial shop floor, the Innovation Center comprises a large workshop, a Connected Products Studio for rapid prototyping, and an IIoT experience area with a range of real-life IIoT demos and applications. The area gives clients a hands-on experience of how new automation and IIoT solutions might improve their innovation, engineering, manufacturing and after-sales strategies and operations.
Clients can work with Accenture to explore how to use customer insight-driven approaches and design thinking to invent and prototype new products, services, solutions and business models. They can also explore how to digitise the industrial customer experience in business-to-business environments, how to leverage and build IIoT-enabled platforms and services for new efficiency and growth, and how to embed analytics, machine learning and other IIoT technologies into industrial products.
In addition, clients will be able to learn more about intelligent automation, robotics, integrated shop-floor systems and cybersecurity, as well as how to use IIoT, cloud and mobile with artificial intelligence and augmented or virtual reality for safer and more productive human-machine interactions.
“Many of our clients have begun to take steps to digitise their businesses – be that from experiment to pilot, or from pilot to rollout,” said Eric Schaeffer, senior managing director, head of Accenture’s Industrial practice. “But many are missing some of the capabilities required to rapidly explore and scale the solutions they want to use.”
Accenture’s clients can also take advantage of its joint offerings with partners such as Microsoft, Siemens and Dassault Systèmes to help them achieve better results and generate more value through their analytics, IIoT, and software investments.
“We built this Innovation Center here because Germany is at the forefront of industry digitisation and automation, and Garching is close to many of Germany’s leading businesses in automotive, industrial equipment, chemicals and other industries, as well as research centres and universities that are working on IIoT and Industry 4.0,” said Frank Riemensperger, senior managing director and country managing director for Germany at Accenture.