Mechanical engineering must shape the digital transformation itself: These were the reasons why the companies DMG Mori, Dürr, Zeiss and ASM PT brought the IoT and software expertise of Software AG on board and jointly launched the joint venture Adamos (ADAptive Manufacturing Open Solutions) - or in other words: "We want to bundle our digital expertise with the domain expertise of mechanical engineering," as Karl-Heinz Streibich, CEO of Software AG, emphasized at the platform presentation on September 5.
The partners see themselves as a strategic alliance for the future topics of Industry 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) in mechanical and plant engineering. With this step, they want to "become active themselves, set standards themselves and actively drive development forward." The aim is to establish the platform as a global industry standard and to gain additional mechanical engineering companies as partners.

The Adamos structure: machine manufacturers can offer their customers apps via digital marketplaces. The platform is also set to grow steadily with new partners.

© Adamos

The Adamos platform

The Adamos IIoT platform developed in the joint venture is vendor-neutral and is designed to offer customers of mechanical engineering companies access to software solutions - with full data autonomy.

It is particularly important to the companies that the so-called vendor lock-in effect is avoided - i.e. dependence on one manufacturer - and that the partners retain data sovereignty. These features are also intended to set Adamos apart from existing platforms such as Mindsphere from Siemens or Predix from GE.

Adamos is technologically based on the 'Cumulocity IoT' platform, which includes a range of preconfigured solutions such as condition monitoring, predictive maintenance and track & trace, as well as functions for the straightforward management of devices and sensors. Dr. Marco Link, Managing Director of Adamos, comments: "The independence and openness of Cumulocity IoT gives us a major competitive advantage. The variety of devices and sensors that we can manage, the depth and breadth of applications that our customers can develop and the cost advantage of creating our own IoT ecosystems are compelling."

Apps and marketplaces

The 'Adamos App Factory' is based on the platform. The aim is to bundle industry knowledge for intuitive applications and the design of digital marketplaces. Each partner's digital offering can be organized via their own digital marketplaces. Each partner can offer its customers its own products. As a 'white label' solution, Adamos enables machine builders to have an individual IIoT presence. This means that partners
use the central platform, they can design the front end to the customer specifically in their own 'look & feel'.
Furthermore, an 'AdamosApp Factory' within the joint venture focuses on the development of apps. The subject areas of the apps can be divided into three areas. Performance management (such as dashboarding), manufacturing operating management (such as MES) and service management (such as predictive maintenance).
The highlight, according to Streibich: "The digital platform has 80% of the functions that every app needs - such as the integration of process management or real-time analyses." The rest, such as the individual user interface, the logic or the components required for a special analytics application, is implemented during app development. "This makes the apps so fast and agile that they can be produced within days or a few weeks," says Streibich.

Attractive pricing
It is also important to give small and medium-sized companies access to digitalization, which is to be achieved with attractive pricing: Access costs a basic fee of 300,000 euros and then a monthly usage fee of between 10 and 100 euros per connected machine, depending on the amount of data. The platform is available as an edge, cloud or on-premise implementation and will be launched worldwide from October 1, 2017.

The joint venture will operate under the name Adamos GmbH, will start on October 1, 2017 with around 200 employees and will already offer five marketplaces of the existing partners with 30 apps. The companies DMG Mori, Dürr, Software AG, Zeiss and ASM PT each hold an equal 20% stake in the Darmstadt-based GmbH.
In addition to the IIoT platform, the players also want to offer consulting for Industry 4.0. A group tasked with supporting the partners will make it as easy as possible for companies to participate in Adamos and digitalization.