Numerous renowned guests from politics and business talk about the impact of digitalisation on the world of work

At the expert panel on the subject of “Digitalisation: A lasting impulse for innovation or a threat to jobs?”, manroland Goss web systems presented its new mobile MainPad maintenance tablet. Together with the development partner XITASO, the Augsburg-based world market leader in web offset printing introduced its new product in the framework of a presentation followed by a panel discussion on 3rd September 2018. The importance of this subject was also underlined by the visit of the Bavarian minister for economic affairs, Franz Josef Pschierer, and further guests of honour.

With its Maintellisense automation strategy, manroland Goss web systems pursues the aim of providing intelligent machines in the near future. This aim requires a central hub for all the relevant information – with the mobile maintenance pad, MainPad, fulfilling exactly this function. How can the time between the occurrence of a malfunction and troubleshooting on complex systems be reduced? To this end, the MainPad offers numerous features – reading and acknowledging all alarm messages at the place of the malfunction, direct access to all necessary documentations and drawings, direct and fast connection to the TeleSupportCenter (TSC) via “remote support calls” and direct video communication with the TSC as well as the fast transmission of documents between technicians on site and the TSC – everything directly on the machine, i.e. at the place of the malfunction.

The MainPad – Hub for all relevant information

The concrete customer benefit is easy to define: The MainPad ensures improved communication through the central provision of all the relevant information and functions (reducing effort and increasing ease of use) of maintenance which leads to a significant reduction of effort and increases ease of use. The MainPad constitutes another important step towards costs reductions and increasing availability.

The new MainPad is part of the ground-breaking “Maintellisense” project. The name of this project is derived from the terms “maintenance”, “intelligence” and “sense” – which have to be intelligently combined in order provide intelligent machinery and “productive maintenance” in future.

Panel discussion on digitalisation in the world of work

The presentation was followed by a high-profile discussion panel with experts around Franz Josef Pschierer, the Bavarian minister for economic affairs, debating the subject of “Digitalisation: A lasting impulse for innovation or a threat to jobs?”. Manuel Kosok, VP Technology & Development manroland Goss web systems, Stefan Schimpfle, managing director of the aitipark start-up centre, Prof. Dr. Jens Brunner, professor of “Health Care Operations/Health Information Management” at Augsburg University, as well as Ulrich Huggenberger, managing partner of XITASO GmBH, joined the Bavarian minister of economic affairs at this panel.

The progress of digitalisation creates challenges, in particular, for traditional medium-sized companies, as a result of which, as Manuel Kosok from manroland Goss web systems explained, we need to understand digitalisation as a continuous task throughout the company. “At manroland Goss, we have employees with extensive experience in conventional engineering. Moreover, at our company, high levels of automation and networking have long been standard. What is important now is that we also incorporate the elements of “Industry 4.0”. In this process, we must make sure that our staff are on board. So far, this change in our corporate culture has been very successful.”

This provides a major benefit for manroland Goss web systems which was also used in the development of the MainPad. For example, the know-how and the long-standing experience were connected and harmonised with the state-of-the-art in digitalisation. As a result, customers are now provided with an all-in-one solution which, with a high level of clarity and ease of use, can concurrently also represent the partly complex working steps and projects and provide support in their execution.