當德國製造遇到科技浪潮(下)

Data services

數據服務

Established in 1874 and Europe’s second-biggest maker of central heating boilers, Vaillant has 12,000 employees — a third of whom work in the service side of the business in jobs such as maintenance and repair.

創建於1874年的歐洲第二大中央供暖鍋爐製造商Vaillant擁有1.2萬名僱員，其中三分之一在服務端工作，承擔着維護和修理等工作。

An increasing proportion of the 2m boilers it manufactures each year are equipped with communications systems to allow machines or people to monitor their operation from afar.

該公司每年生產的200萬臺鍋爐中，有越多越大比例的鍋爐配備了通信系統，讓機器或者人能夠遠程監測鍋爐的運行。

Carsten Voigtländer, chief executive, says this means Vaillant can think about new forms of service based on big data.

該公司首席執行官卡斯滕.福格特倫德(Carsten Voigtländer)表示，這意味着Vaillant能夠考慮基於大數據的新型服務。

The company is working out how to assimilate and analyse the huge amount of data generated from boilers, and then use it to build new sources of revenue.

這家公司正在研究如何吸收並分析鍋爐產生的海量數據，然後利用它們創造新的收入來源。

We can provide consumers with ways to control their appliances better than in the past and at the same time analyse factors such as energy use, says Mr Voigtländer.

我們能夠爲客戶提供比過去更好的操控設備的方式，同時分析能源使用等因素，福格特倫德說。

Philipp Leutiger of the Munich consultancy Roland Berger says Vaillant is typical of Mittelstand businesses.

慕尼黑諮詢公司羅蘭貝格(Roland Berger)的菲利普.洛伊蒂格爾(Philipp Leutiger)說，Vaillant的做法對於德國中小型企業是典型的。

Just as many are now in hardware niches, he says some will carve out service niches, based often on their own proprietary software.

就如許多此類企業處於硬件縫隙市場一樣，他說一些企業將開闢服務縫隙市場，往往基於它們的專有軟件。

Connected tools

聯網工具

Knipex makes pliers — producing more than 12m pairs a year in 800 different types, nearly all of which are made in the company’s Wuppertal headquarters, which employs 1,000 people.

Knipex公司專業製造鉗子，每年生產逾1200萬把800種不同型號的鉗子，幾乎所有這些鉗子都是在該公司位於伍珀塔爾(Wuppertal)、僱傭了1000名員工的總部生產的。

Ralf Putsch, chief executive, says his 134-year-old company’s strategy mixes anything from new forms of alloys to improved ways to control the device to create leverage.

首席執行官拉爾夫.普奇(Ralf Putsch)說，這家擁有134年曆史的企業運用了從新式合金到改進工具操控方式等各種策略，以創建競爭優勢。

Mr Putsch emphasises using his company’s in house-built forging and grinding machines.

普奇強調，該公司在生產中使用公司自建的鍛造和磨削機牀。

I don’t see how we can be innovative and different if we rely on production methods open to everyone, he says.

如果我們依賴對任何人都開放的生產方法，我看不出我們該如何進行創新和差異化，他說。

One approach, developed by a subsidiary in eastern Germany, involves connecting pliers to a computer so technical experts in safety-critical industries, such as aerospace electricians, can monitor the forces being applied.

Knipex位於德國東部的子公司開發的一種方法是把鉗子和計算機連接起來，使航空航天電工等安全關鍵行業的技術專家能夠監控所施加的力。

His company has spent EURO200,000 researching the technology.

普奇的公司投入了20萬歐元對這項技術進行研究。

Gathering inspiration from a recent trip to Silicon Valley he says: It’s important to create a receptive environment for new thinking.

最近的一次硅谷之行讓他得到了啓發，他說：營造一個願意接納新思維的環境很重要。