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ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE COVER STORY


MECHANICAL ENGINEERING - NUPANO IS THE ANSWER


Bridging the gap between the IT and OT worlds, Lenze’s Nupano platform took centre stage at Hannover Messe this April. Here the company looks into its benefits and examines how it can help engineering companies differentiate themselves from the market


machine builders can differentiate themselves in the market, not purely on commodity apps. The demand for digital products is definitely there. At Hannover Messe, the automation specialist showed how machine builders can open up new opportunities in the digital age thanks to the use of tried-and-tested IT technology, without specific software and programming knowledge. Mechanical and plant engineering is an


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important industry, many well-paid jobs depend on it in Europe. To be competitive in the long term, it needs knowledge of production processes, physics and digital tools for new business models. European machines sell all over the world. However, margins are low and often one-off. Mechanical engineering needs new, recurring revenue streams (software licenses), new differentiators. With Nupano from Lenze, machine builders


get connected to the rapid development in the IT industry and use modern technologies in their domain – even without programming knowledge. This gives machine builders a competitive advantage over companies from other regions of the world and enables them to develop


upano from Lenze is the bridge between the IT and OT worlds. The open platform focuses on applications (apps) with which


new customers and markets.


JUMPING OVER INNOVATION HURDLES Friedhelm Drunker is head of development at a medium-sized mechanical engineering company. He has just advertised three development positions. Number of applications? One. Too few for the tasks that await him and his team. The company wants to offer its customers


service applications for their machines in order to differentiate themselves from the competition and, in particular, to contribute to sustainability. Drunker is thinking specifically about an AI-based app, to optimise the energy efficiency of his machines. At the same time, he is at a loss as to how he can equip a series machine with a variety of apps while ensuring that he only combines compatible versions. The development manager is certain that his mechanical engineering company will disappear from the market if he does not differentiate himself on the market through software services. Drunker commented: “The majority answer in the automation industry to generating new revenue streams, in the face of an intensifying shortage of skilled workers, is called platform.” Supposedly open platforms, marketplaces and


ecosystems are emerging among many providers. There is, however, confusion over definitions. What all ‘platforms’ on the market have in common is that they do not solve Drunker’s problem, because these platforms do not allow him to integrate his own additional services into the machine that differentiate him from the competition. Then Drunker discovers the open


automation platform Nupano. It enables him to bring innovation to the machine and tap the potential of digitization at the machine level. Even a team without IT knowledge can now equip a machine over its entire lifecycle, with digital services from a client-specific apps store. The platform takes over the management of any number of apps, including their versions, on a growing installed base. Nupano solves Drunker’s problem, which is


representative of the mechanical and plant engineering industry here. Lenze has jumped three innovation hurdles: An innovative method for integrating IT into a machine (OT), a new method for managing software in mechanical engineering, and a novel secure pairing method. Unlike other platforms that offer only


commodity apps, Nupano allows Drunker to easily integrate and manage its own software


8 DESIGN SOLUTIONS APRIL 2023


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