- The eco Association will lead the consortium to develop Service-Meister
- By 2022, a platform will be created that supports service processes with artificial intelligence
- Constant and ubiquitous scalable service knowledge available for plants and processes in SMEs
The Service-Meister Project has been chosen for sponsorship within the scope of the AI Innovation Competition of the German Federal Government. A panel of experts of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) has awarded funding to the industrial project, which is based on artificial intelligence (AI). On 1 January 2020, the Service-Meister Consortium led by the eco Association will start implementing the platform. The goal is to create a service ecosystem that enables small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular to integrate external partners for services.
“We are pleased that the panel has confirmed the high relevance of the Service-Meister project for the industry,” says Andreas Weiss, Head of Digital Business Models at the eco Association. “With Service-Meister, SMEs can access the knowledge and technology they need anywhere, anytime.” Weiss is one of the leaders of the consortium that will develop the Service-Meister project. Also part of the consortium are USU Software AG, the Karlsruhe Service Research Institute (KSRI), the Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin, the Institute for Internet Security if(is), the Institute for Web Science and Technologies (WeST), the Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering ISST, and the Competence Network Trusted Cloud e. V.. Numerous associated partners also support the project.
Service-Meister offers Service 4.0 for Industry 4.0
“Service-Meister brings AI and SMEs together. The project will therefore deliver an important component for further digital transformation in Germany as a business location,” says eco Managing Director Alexander Rabe. “The eco Association is proud of the project in which we will bring the strength of our network into play in order to spread innovation across the industry.” The aim of Service-Meister is to make the necessary service knowledge about industrial plants available in a scalable way with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). The cross-plant, cross-departmental, and cross-company service platform will be specially tailored to the challenges of German SMEs.
An important subgoal is to enable less skilled professionals to provide complex services with the help of digital advisors such as AI-based service bots and smart services. The second subgoal is to create a platform for digitalized service knowledge to enable the cross-company scalability of services. This creates a service ecosystem that counteracts the shortage of skilled workers in Germany and makes German SMEs competitive in the long term.
Industrial companies and implementation partners solve concrete service problems
In line with the BMWi funding period, Service-Meister will be established and expanded over the next three years. Tandems of industrial companies and implementation partners solve concrete service problems using artificially intelligent tools and processes. On the industrial side, WĂĽrth and the Trumpf Group, Atlas Copco, KEB Automation, Open Grid Europe, and Krohne Messtechnik are among those participating. The implementation partners are inovex, grandcentrix, and USU Software. The AI solutions are available to SMEs as leap innovations, which contain a radical new technological feature, through the Service-Meister platform.
Studies show that there is currently a great need for Service-Meister: 69 percent of companies want to support service processes using AI in five years – today the figure is 27 percent. Over the same period, an additional EUR 31.8 billion in added value are to be created if the manufacturing industry as a whole makes greater use of AI.* Associated partners in the Service-Meister project include IBM, Bilfinger, Bosch, Trelleborg, Technische Universität Darmstadt, KI Bundesverband e. V., neusta software development west, Plansee, Initiative Digital, HOW.FM, REPLY Leadvise, Berlin Partner für Wirtschaft und Technologie, AI2YNET, Voice Bundesverband der IT-Anwender e. V., Fraunhofer IUK Technologie, Voith, Innovationszentrum für Industrie 4.0, prenode, Liferay, Hahn Consulting, networker NRW, Fraunhofer IAIS, FABOS, Fraunhofer IAO, and iicgroup.
Further information about Service-Meister
Website of the Service-Meister project (in German)
