The successful consultation between Robert GmbH and the KI NRW Future Center led to the desire to better prepare the entire workforce for digital transformation. The next step was to launch a comprehensive qualification series that covered three central areas of digitalization: increasing energy and machine efficiency through retrofitting, implementing AI in everyday operations and using dashboards to improve data visualization and decision-making.
These practical insights supported the participants in applying the approaches they had learned in their operations and sustainably improving efficiency. The positive results of this qualification series and the successful collaboration will be on November 19th in Berlin at the annual conference of the future centers presented.
Robert GmbH (Exact Colors) continues its journey through digital transformation. After the successful completion of the intensive consultation, in which it was examined whether a color recipe mixing can also be done with the support of artificial intelligence (AI), a three-part qualification series took place from May to July 2024:
- Increase energy and machine efficiency with retrofitting,
- AI in everyday business life: AI is not magic and
- More than just a graphic – how dashboards help you work faster and better
Part 1: Increase energy and machine efficiency with retrofit
The KI NRW Future Center started with qualifications on the topic of retrofitting – i.e. the subsequent digital expansion of old machines as already described elsewhere. In addition to an individual, well-known faces from Robert GmbH came to the three-afternoon qualification to find out about the concept of retrofitting and the types and working methods of various sensors. Since the participants already had ideas about where they would like to see or want retrofitting to be used, a lively exchange arose and the topics could be conveyed in an application-oriented manner before moving on to the practical part, in which the participants were able to try out a program that illustrated the data collection of the sensors. The opportunity to create such a program yourself was also offered and was very well received by the participants – so much so that a sensor kit was subsequently ordered for an employee.
“Thanks to the first three qualifications, we have learned how we can collect and monitor additional production data using very simple means. This will allow us to further increase our quality and avoid waste in the future.”
Benjamin Robert, Managing Director Robert GmbH
Part 2: AI in everyday business life: AI is not magic
The subsequent qualification on the topic of “AI in everyday business” was based on the results of the previous workshop. The KI NRW Future Center presented how existing data, collected for example through retrofitting, can be used profitably. This was illustrated by the CRISP-DM, which describes the process of data mining using six phases describes. An important message within the process dealt with the topic of cleaning and preparing the data, which is often an underestimated effort. As the qualification progressed, the focus was on machine learning and the use of the cleaned data. The participants were told that they first had to be aware of why they needed the data and what they wanted to predict. Only then can the data be processed accordingly and an AI can be trained appropriately. At the end, this training could be tried out using a low-code software solution that does not require any programming knowledge.
“Even though we already looked at how AI works during the intensive consultation, the content of the AI qualification helped me to understand the AI project we had previously carried out even better. And the participants who were not involved in the consultation were also able to get a good introduction to the topic through the company’s internal examples.”
Benjamin Robert, Managing Director Robert GmbH
Part 3: More than just a graphic – how dashboards help you work faster and better
The conclusion of the technology triathlon was the qualification using the often underestimated dashboards, which open up new possibilities and accelerate processes through data visualization, especially in the operational context. Many people have been using them unconsciously for a long time, for example in the form of weather apps or the dashboard in the car, and they quickly display all the relevant data that users need. But what if not every user needs to have the same information right away? The Future Center KI NRW answered this question in the first part of the last interactive workshop in the series. The needs of the participants were taken into account and they were helped to find out for themselves. Since dashboards should be highly customizable, the theoretical approach to creating a dashboard was combined with practical exercises. The participants at Robert GmbH were again able to benefit from the experience they had already gained through the intensive consultation as well as the previous workshop and knew which data was particularly relevant for them.
In the final second part of the qualification, the Future Center AI NRW offered with the help of business intelligence (BI) software – a tool to analyze and utilize business data – insights into practice by presenting how the data is read in and out and how it can be displayed on the dashboard. Finally, an insight into the function of interactive graphics, which can be displayed on the dashboard, was given.
“The qualification gives us the opportunity to make our reporting much easier and to obtain more information in the desired area at the push of a button. In retrospect, the workshop would be suitable for many more employees.”
Benjamin Robert, Managing Director Robert GmbH
At the end, the participants in the qualification series were given a competent and practical insight into the possibilities and requirements for digitalization and were impressively shown what the path from the idea to retrofitting to the display of AI-generated data on a personal dashboard can look like.
“The qualification series gave us a good overview of various digitalization topics. This allowed us to learn how we can collect more data in order to design efficient processes using AI and dashboards.”
Benjamin Robert, Managing Director Robert GmbH
From left to right: Christian Bobisch (Future Center KI NRW | ZENIT GmbH), Julia Nießner (Future Center KI NRW | FernUniversität in Hagen), Benjamin Robert (Managing Director Robert GmbH), Dennis Flato (Employee Robert GmbH)
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