CustomerZF OPENMATICS

Partner-

Products and ServicesAzure IoT Hub, Azure Event Hubs,Azure Stream Analytics, Azure Service Bus

IndustryAutomotive

Organization SizeCorporate (10,000+ employees)

CountryGermany

ZF uses the cloud to keep track of vehicles and containers

ZF OPENMATICS, a subsidiary of automotive supplier ZF Friedrichshafen AG specialising in connectivity solutions, wanted to bring a totally new asset tracking solution to market. Its USP was that it would not just track the loca-tion of the vehicles and assets, but also their status. But it was unsure how to develop the software platform required without spending large amounts on its infrastructure, but still ensuring scalability and stability.

“Microsoft Azure, with its flexibility and scalability, helped our solution to see the light of

day.”

Thomas Rösch, Managing Director, ZF OPENMATICS

CustomerZF OPENMATICS

Partner-

Products and ServicesAzure IoT Hub, Azure Event Hubs,Azure Stream Analytics, Azure Service Bus

IndustryAutomotive

Organization SizeCorporate (10,000+ employees)

CountryGermany

OPENMATICS. At the same time, OPENMATICS needed an out-of-the-box platform that would be as flexible as possible to enable it to respond to the needs of its custo-mers. The connectivity specialist knew a one-size-fits-all solution would be too rigid to cover all of the customers’ requirements. But

the solution provided under the deTAGtive product name can do far more than just identify the location of vehicles or assets.

The cloud’s role as midwife

deTAGtive consists of Bluetooth TAGs that are attached to the tracked asset, tag finders (reading devices) and an underlying software platform. This is where Microsoft Azure comes in. OPENMATICS had conceived its

software platform as a cloud solution right from the start due to the low start-up costs and turnkey services: “Microsoft Azure, with its flexibility and scalability, helped our solution to see the light of day” says Thomas Rösch, Managing Director,ZF OPENMATICS. Azure offered the cloud’s usual benefits such as scalability, as well as start-up-friendly billing based on actual memory and computing use.

Constant monitoring of assets’ status

The TAGs communicate via Bluetooth with various end devices, including smartphones, readers and on-board units in vehicles. The end devices then transmit the data collected by the TAG to the cloud platform via their Internet connection, where it is evaluated. OPENMATICS chose Bluetooth because the radio tech-nology can communicate seamlessly with a large number of end devices and is easy on batteries. It can also operate on the same radio frequen-cies throughout the world, saving users from having to adjust to local regulatory requirements.

As mentioned at the outset, data streams don’t just cover details of the location of the assets but also infor-mation on their status. For example, the TAGs transmit the temperature of the asset. This is important for ZF since many automotive parts must not be installed below a certain temperature. deTAGtive means that assembly staff know when a compo-nent has warmed up sufficiently to be installed safely after being stored outside overnight.

“The software also reports if a trans-port container has been subjected

ZF is a global technology compa-ny that supplies mobility systems for cars, commercial vehicles and industrial technology appli-cations. It has around 149,000 employees in approximately 230 locations in 40 countries world-wide. ZF’s comprehensive tech-nology portfolio offers all-in-one solutions for established automo-tive manufacturers and mobility providers as well as new entrants in the transport and mobility sector. ZF systems are constantly being developed to include new digital networking and automati-on functions. ZF enables vehicles to see, think and act. ZF founded the connectivity specialist com-pany OPENMATICS in 2010 and provides intelligent connectivity solutions under this brand – for telematics and asset tracking, for example.

Wide-ranging competence: ZF provides automotive manufacturers with pretty much everything they need to build high-quality vehicles: Axle systems, sensor systems, com-puting services, airbags, brakes, transmission, electro-mobility and automated driving solutions and much more. And as if that weren’t enough, ZF’s portfolio also inclu-des connectivity solutions under its subsidiary brand OPENMATICS. As well as telematics products for buses, trucks and cars, vehicle dia-gnosis and entertainment systems, OPENMATICS is also looking at the high-quality area of asset tracking.

“When we started developing the asset tracking solution we knew we didn’t want to build a comprehen-sive IT infrastructure”, says Chris-toph Tietz, Head of Software De-velopment – deTAGtive,

“When we started developing the asset tracking solution we knew we didn’t want to build a comprehensive IT infrastruc-ture.”Christoph Tietz,Head of Development - deTAGtive, ZF OPENMATICS

CustomerZF OPENMATICS

Partner-

Products and ServicesAzure IoT Hub, Azure Event Hubs,Azure Stream Analytics, Azure Service Bus

IndustryAutomotive

Organization SizeCorporate (10,000+ employees)

CountryGermany

to heavy vibration. That means we can be much more precise when inspecting the parts affected for damage”, says Elena Weiss, Material Flow Logistics, ZF Friedrichshafen AG. So instead of running spot checks on large numbers of shipped assets to detect damage, deTAGtive users can reduce the time required for quality controls and increase their precision at the same time.

The analyses are run on the web-ba-sed deTAGtive portal developed by OPENMATICS. Power BI running on Azure is used to create individual reports requested by customers. This means reports can be created wi-thout having to program every single analysis manually.

Cloud is eager to learn and com-municate

The Azure IoT Hub is the central

input route for TAG data. But the openness of Azure and its variety of ready-made interfaces allows the deTAGtive platform to be paired quickly with third-party systems such as SAP. There are now around 20,000 TAGs registered on the deTAGtive system and many customers pair existing systems with the OPEN-MATICS cloud platform via interfa-ces. This flexibility is essential in the B2B environment where customers expect tailored solutions.

Another key argument for customers purchasing the solution is economic: “The financial costs of purchasing the deTAGtive solution are far out-weighed by the productivity gains achieved”, says Elena Weiss. “The investment in the infrastructure paid off within three months and we are seeing new cost savings all the time”, Weiss continues.

For example, customers can already evaluate the data supplied by the TAGs to optimise travel routes or avoid quality issues: The software deTAGtive provides precise informa-tion on the points along the route at which significant vibration always occurs.

But development of the asset tra-cking solution doesn’t end there: “In future, we want to use machine le-arning to make accurate predictions about locations and arrival times based on the data collected”, says. Thomas Rösch. The advantage of

machine learning over methods that are purely based on statistical data is that you no longer have to pro-gram dedicated rules and analyses for every new use case. The historical data set is enough for machine lear-ning to do this.

And since Microsoft Azure also offers ready-made solutions for machine learning and other AI methods, this is an entirely realistic proposition.

“The financial costs of purcha-sing the deTAGtive solution are far outweighed by the pro-ductivity gains achieved. The investment in the infrastructure paid off within three months.”Elena Weiß, Material Flow Logistics,ZF Friedrichshafen AG

“In future, we want to use machine learning to make accurate predictions about locations and arrival times based on the data collected.”Thomas Rösch, Managaging Director,ZF OPENMATICS