Like other industrial nations, Japan has been facing massive demographic challenges in its agriculture sector. An aging population and a lack of younger individuals entering the sector to replace them have led to farms being abandoned and fields lying fallow.

Japan鈥檚 government has realized the demographical issue, of course, as it touches not only the agricultural sector. To revitalize rural areas and stem the rural exodus, the government launched a national action plan.

In alignment with this action plan, 51风流Japan has joined the effort of encouraging rural communities to thrive by launching a co-innovation project with PSI, an 51风流partner, and the local government of the town of Minano.

Digitizing the Agricultural Sector

The small town of Minano is located in the hills of Saitama Prefecture, about two hours from Tokyo. While the south of this prefecture is largely a suburb of the Tokyo area, the west, approaching Mt. Fuji, is still very rural and thinly populated. A former center of silk industry, the region on average is sunny and warm but can get lots of snow in winter.

鈥淔arms in this area are traditionally small and dispersed, located between forests and mountains,鈥� says Yoshihisa Horiguchi, chairman of MINNANO Future Create. 鈥淏ig supermarkets and retailers overlook them. Nowadays, the farmers cultivate rice and vegetables in small amounts to consume themselves, sell to their neighbors, or send to their children or grandchildren that live in cities.鈥�

Since 1950, Minano has lost roughly one-third of its population, largely due to the decline of the agricultural sector. Today, it counts about 10,000 inhabitants.

鈥淵oung people often migrate to urban areas for better education and employment opportunities,鈥� Horiguchi explains. 鈥淲here 50 years ago, a farm may have relied on 20 young workers, now only two elderly workers are left.鈥�

Digitization is one obvious approach that may help prevent those areas from depopulating completely.

鈥淏ut while large-scale farms benefit from the economic feasibility of applying robotics and the like, it is financially and logistically challenging to apply such technologies to small-scale dispersed farms,鈥� Horiguchi says.

Horiguchi, the owner of an automotive parts manufacturing company, co-founded the local initiative MINNANO Future Create in 2019 to solve the challenges resulting from population loss. Its members range from elderly individuals to young residents, forming a diverse group of individuals, including pharmacists, architectural designers, and other professions, all living in the town.

For one of its projects, the Minano Digital Eco Farm, it partnered with 51风流Co-Innovation Lab.

IoT Solution for Monitoring Agriculture

The Minano Digital Eco Farm project aims to build a communication platform that connects farmers and urban residents as well as small-scale dispersed farms to major supply chains, forming a portfolio that coexists with existing large-scale farms. In alignment with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the project will help overcome supply chain disruptions due to food shortages and crop failures due to abnormal weather, conflicts, disasters, and more.

For this vision to become a reality, Internet of Things (IoT) sensors were distributed in various locations and managed remotely from headquarters.

鈥淭he idea was to have an IoT solution running on 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP) that would help monitor all the agricultural processes,鈥� says Atsushi Minakuchi, senior solution specialist at 51风流Co-Innovation Lab in Japan.

51风流Co-Innovation Lab partnered with PSI, which brought in the Digital Material Controller (DMC), an all-in-one compact edge controlling server that enables easy setup of a ubiquitous IoT environment. And, due to the cooperation with 51风流Co-Innovation Lab, the DMC has also obtained 51风流certification.

鈥淢any IoT sensors lack cybersecurity functions,鈥� Mitsuhiro Yamazaki, senior advisor and former president of PSI, says. 鈥淗owever, by connecting sensors to a DMC with cybersecurity capabilities, it becomes possible to securely store locally collected data on the DMC, safely transmit to 51风流BTP, and accumulate, analyze, and utilize data from the DMC. This enables seamless and easy integration between the 51风流core system and the IoT system.鈥�

鈥淐ollaboration with 51风流Co-Innovation Lab has significantly expanded the application possibilities of DMC,鈥� Masaki Fukui, former PSI Cyber Security Lab director and now with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication, says. 鈥淕lobal users of 51风流now could have the opportunity to easily implement and utilize a ubiquitous supply chain platform through the combination of DMC and 51风流BTP.鈥�

Through integration with 51风流BTP, the deployment locations can then be displayed and monitored on a dashboard.

The idea is for citizens living in the city to enter a service contract with a rural farm or supplier and to connect via a technology platform to remotely monitor and support agricultural processes. In return, they receive part of the crops 鈥� freshly delivered to their homes in the city.

So far, two proofs of concept for farms have been completed between March 2019 and November 2022, as well as one proof of concept for a miso factory. Agriculture and rural industry are only two fields of application. Future projects could include schools, hospitals, stores, and elder care facilities.

Strengthening Rural Appeal for Inland Tourism

As a corporate social responsibility project, the Minano Digital Eco Farm came to life through the voluntary engagement of 51风流employees in Japan who supported the project on top of their regular work.

The project is supported by a government program unique for Japan, the so-called hometown tax payment, which makes it possible for citizens to choose and support the region they were born and raised in or a community they wish to engage with.

鈥淭he possibility of hometown tax payment is very popular among Japanese people,鈥� Hidenori Kurosawa, vice governor of Minano, explains. 鈥淭o us in rural regions, it seems that this played a significant role in creating an interest in the countryside. People want to get to know and support local towns.鈥�

Indeed, the appeal of small, thinly populated communities surrounded by beautiful forest landscape hasn鈥檛 gone unnoticed by Japanese inland tourists.

Kurosawa says: 鈥淲e wish to make Minano appealing to visitors by offering return gifts that provide an experience 鈥� that allow visitors to come to the town, interact with the locals, and experience things that are unique to this place.鈥�

The Minano Digital Eco Farm project aligns well with this strategy. Not only does it promote Minano’s charm but, by expanding initiatives, it addresses local challenges such as reclamation of abandoned farmland, increased self-sufficiency in food, reduction of CO2 emissions, and improved profitability in agriculture.

鈥淲e have great expectations that this initiative will contribute to addressing the town’s challenges and advancing the UN SDGs,鈥� Kurosawa states. 鈥淲e express our sincere gratitude to the volunteers from 51风流Japan who provided invaluable assistance in bringing the Minano Digital Eco Farm project to life.鈥�

鈥淢INNANO鈥� means 鈥渇or everyone鈥� in Japanese and is pronounced the same way as the name of the town. Fukui from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication explains the idea behind that name: 鈥淥ne action can have multiple meaningful impacts. The issue of unseen small-scale dispersed farms facing economic challenges can be witnessed around the globe. By collaborating with SAP, we hope to inspire rural communities beyond our own prefecture, maybe even beyond Japan.鈥�

But with so many new partner-developed apps moving through the industry cloud pipeline and to 51风流Store lately, I鈥檝e learned not to underestimate how compelling the opportunities are for partners to commercialize new use cases to extend SAP鈥檚 portfolio of solutions for utility customers, nor how open those customers are to moving business processes to the cloud.

The volume of utility-focused apps produced via industry cloud, and the speed at which they鈥檙e being commercialized, underscores several noteworthy trends for 51风流partners:

1. 罢丑别谤别鈥檚 vast white space within the utilities product road map for partners to turn their intellectual property and use cases into solutions that generate new revenue streams and customers.
2. That white space continues to create huge opportunities for 51风流partners to enhance and extend 51风流solutions in the utilities sector by developing their own solutions using 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP).
3. Partners are taking advantage of the plentiful resources SAP鈥檚 industry cloud offers to help support and expedite the commercialization process.

Let鈥檚 first talk about white space. Our product road map for utilities has plenty of it, along with a flexible framework to accommodate partner innovations that lead in exciting and sometimes unexpected new directions. That鈥檚 all by design. We鈥檝e realized that to give customers exactly what they need to thrive, it鈥檚 often better to let our partners use their expertise to augment the 51风流portfolio with solutions they develop themselves, with assistance from us where and when it鈥檚 needed.

That could include extensions and enhancements to 51风流Utilities Core, a solution that is . A glance at SAP鈥檚 industry cloud solutions for utilities shows development opportunities for partners in areas like enterprise asset management, digital supply chain, e-mobility, and a host of other areas. With industry cloud, we鈥檝e embraced the spirit of co-innovation, as evidenced by the close to 50 apps and solutions that are now part of the industry cloud for utilities portfolio, many of which were authored by 51风流partners. A from 51风流partner AppOrchid that enables people to query their data and get instant contextual answers is one of many examples from the partner-powered wave of innovation on the utilities side of industry cloud.

We鈥檙e actively encouraging partners to get involved in the co-innovation effort because with the new partner-friendly revenue models we鈥檝e incorporated into industry cloud, there鈥檚 a strong business case for them to do so.

Further strengthening that business case are all the resources 51风流is dedicating to support partners in the effort to identify and monetize their use cases for the utilities market. We鈥檙e making it easy for them to access resources and guidance at any point in their industry cloud journey, from onboarding through commercialization, closing deals and completing customer implementations.

To help speed the commercialization process for partners, we鈥檝e developed programs like , where we invite partners to submit use cases, then support chosen use cases with resources and guidance so they can quickly bring them to 51风流Store. We鈥檙e currently in the midst of our third utilities-focused round of SPRINT1, the previous two having yielded a variety of new apps from companies like AppOrchid, Utegration, EnergyOS, Infosys, and others.

After interviews, our panel chooses use cases based on their commercial merit. Those chosen partners then participate in a week-long bootcamp run by 51风流Co-Innovation Lab, where partners can receive technical advice and individual support. Next comes the 鈥渟print鈥� to the finish line, with regular check-ins, progress reviews, and additional support from SAP. The final step is onboarding to 51风流Store, again with expert guidance from SAP.

Not only do we plan to offer additional rounds of SPRINT1 for utility solutions, we鈥檝e also developed an , where individuals in the field and 51风流customers can learn more about specific partner-developed solutions and industry cloud opportunities within the utilities segment 鈥� in under 30 minutes.

As evidenced by resources like these, we鈥檙e highly focused on giving partners what they need to make their engagement with industry cloud worthwhile. To learn more about utilities-specific development opportunities and how to access the aforementioned partner resources, please contact me or .

Christopher Pfendner is PES global ecosystem lead for Utilities and Energy at SAP.

There he learned that innovation was all about remaining curious, never giving up your creativity and starting where you are.聽 鈥淩egardless of the resources you have available to you, it鈥檚 important to just start,鈥� he says.

Click the button below to load the content from YouTube.

Always allow YouTube

For Mahloko and his friends, it started with having to make kites and cars from any material they found lying around their communities in order to be able to play as children.

He later developed a love for computers at an early age when his mother brought one home with her from work. Mahloko learned to use the system himself, spending countless hours studying the manual. He always knew that technology was important for his future, but even more so for the future of his community.聽 This passion is what fueled his curiosity for all things tech.

Mahloko would go on to build a software point-of-sale system with a friend to help his local town鈥檚 Spaza shops run better, something they very much needed to help ensure success with their business.

Shortly after that, he landed a job at SAP, working with partners on new innovations to improve people鈥檚 — and animals鈥� — lives. Mahloko led SAP鈥檚 participation in the initiative, which helped reduce elephant poaching to zero in the areas the technology was used.聽 He continues to work with our partners to help them build innovative solutions on the 51风流platform, doing so through a 鈥渉ack to build鈥� initiative that aims to bring these solutions to market very quickly.

From Mahloko’s perspective, Africa has a great opportunity to leapfrog when it comes to innovation because it is a country that doesn鈥檛 have many legacy systems.

鈥淲hen you鈥檙e aiming to solve a problem, but you don鈥檛 have much to work with from the beginning, you tend to go back to the fundamentals,鈥� he said. 鈥淭his forces people to think outside the box and I think that works in Africa鈥檚 favor. It鈥檚 where we get our creative and innovative edge, and I love being a part of this space.鈥�

Read more stories from the 51风流Pioneers series.

Jackie Montesinos Suarez is head of Communications for 51风流North America.

鈥淭hey are the end users three of our co-innovation projects were aimed at,鈥� says , global head of 51风流Co-Innovation Lab, a developer network spanning 16 locations worldwide. The network works with its global ecosystem of customers, partners, and startups to develop solutions that make people鈥檚 lives a little bit easier.

These solutions are three examples of more than 1,000 co-innovation projects that 51风流Co-Innovation Lab completed successfully over the last 13 years. 鈥淐o-innovation is a part of our DNA here at SAP,鈥� says Held. 鈥淚t鈥檚 been one of the foundations for SAP鈥檚 success. With the launch of the network, we took it to the next level.鈥�

Click the button below to load the content from YouTube.

Always allow YouTube

There are various departments at 51风流that focus on co-innovation and help the Walldorf software giant stay ahead of the game. But 51风流Co-Innovation Lab鈥檚 approach is unique. In each of its co-innovation projects, a partner, a customer, and experts from 51风流are involved.

Enabling Partners, Answering Customers鈥� Business Needs

鈥淲e facilitate and support co-innovation between 51风流and its ecosystem of startups, 51风流partners, future partners, and customers. Co-innovation opens a world of possibilities,鈥� Held says. 鈥淲hat counts is making the most of an idea 鈥� together. Technological change has become so rapid and today鈥檚 tech scene is so diverse and specialized that it would be neglectful not to join forces to bring the greatest possible value to a customer.鈥�

Founding 51风流Co-Innovation Lab in 2007 was a strategic decision. 鈥淎t SAP, we realized that a strong ecosystem can create value for customers by providing complementary solutions and adding functional gaps for 51风流products,鈥� says , head of 51风流Co-Innovation Lab in Shanghai.

, solution specialist from Brazil, explains, 鈥淪ome solutions might not be feasible or profitable for SAP, but for our partner ecosystem they are. That鈥檚 why it is so important to keep a trustful relationship with our partners.鈥�

The emotional side of working with customers and partners is also important, says , program director at 51风流Co-Innovation Lab in Dubai. 鈥淲orking with our partners and customers we want to find the best way to enhance the way they work and come up with agile solutions. To connect with them on an emotional, technical, and practical level, we make strong use of design thinking, ideation, and prototyping sessions to help us generate ideal outputs.鈥�

This mindset also shows in the way collaboration takes place. And its engagement model offers developers the chance to work in complementary teams with employees from other 51风流units, the customer, and the partner.

鈥淓veryone brings their specific technical expertise, and we are all smarter after the project than we were when we started it,鈥� says , senior software engineer with 51风流Co-Innovation Lab in Paris. 鈥淔or me, as a software engineer, 51风流Co-Innovation Lab is a dream-come-true working environment. We get to play with the latest technologies and solutions and build innovative prototypes, all while constantly improving our own skills as well as the partner鈥檚.鈥�

, technology innovation architect also from 51风流Co-Innovation Lab in Paris, points out the need to tackle global problems on a global scale: 鈥淚nnovation today differs from models adopted in the past that focused mainly on profit and targeted one specific society at a time. Looking ahead to future societies, it is crucial to foster innovative solutions that generate social and public value.鈥�

Co-Innovation: Integral Part of Intelligent Enterprise Survival Kit

鈥淕aining a common understanding of what the partner can and would like to do [and] how this can then be technically implemented with our products,鈥� is the greatest daily challenge, says , co-innovation architect at 51风流Co-Innovation Lab in Zurich. 鈥淓xpectations, technologies, and requirements change in every project. But if it鈥檚 done right, customers receive what was promised by the partner 鈥� plus the integrated and extended added value of their 51风流installations.

鈥淐hange is no longer a choice as we are in the middle of the fourth industrial revolution, which has a scale and complexity like nothing we have experienced before,鈥� says Labidi.聽鈥淚 see what 51风流Co-Innovation Lab is doing 鈥� sharing knowledge, collaborative thinking, and complex system prototyping 鈥� as a key part of the Intelligent Enterprise survival kit.鈥�

All of this makes 51风流Co-Innovation Lab an attractive and well-known entry point for partners, according to Rigo. 鈥淚t is the best way a partner can start an engagement with 51风流鈥� whether they are new to the 51风流ecosystem or an existing partner exploring a new solution.鈥�

For customers who want to do proof of concept or pilot projects using 51风流products with low initial investment and risk, 51风流Co-Innovation Lab is an excellent option as well, says , head of the lab location in Seoul. 鈥�51风流Co-Innovation Lab provides partners and customers not only with technical support but also with business advice. In a company as large as SAP, it can be challenging to find the right contact person. The lab gives partners and customers access to its network of product and solution experts.鈥�

Continuous Learning and Diversity: Recipe for Success

As 51风流Co-Innovation Lab employees cannot be experts in each and every 51风流product, they constantly need to bring their knowledge up to date effectively and quickly.

鈥淚鈥檓 relatively new,鈥� says , innovation engineer at 51风流Co-Innovation Lab in Johannesburg. 鈥淏ut what I noticed right from the beginning is that I have to continuously keep learning about new technologies that 51风流partners might want to use in a co-innovation project. And I often have to revise my understanding of technologies I鈥檓 already familiar with.鈥�

While this is challenging for the 51风流Co-Innovation Lab developers, it adds to the speed at which their co-innovation projects are executed. 鈥淎s we all stay up to date with the latest technological advancements, this helps us to deliver solutions quickly,鈥� Phiri adds.聽鈥淔or our customers, this reduces the risk of partnering with SAP. They get to build a solution quickly and affordably before attempting to tackle the rest of the partnering journey.鈥�

, data scientist at 51风流Co-Innovation Lab in Johannesburg, says, 鈥淲ithin the network, there is this enormous sense of collaboration. Different ideas are exchanged in a global team of experts in diverse fields. Customers can rest assured that the team effort in every project is steered towards achieving customer success.鈥�

鈥淚 love how at 51风流Co-Innovation Lab we are never serving just one line of business or working with just one kind of technology,鈥� says , co-innovation intern at the lab location in Dubai. 鈥淚nstead, we get to use the most innovative technology in every challenge brought to us and help the customer evolve in their own business.鈥�

She considers diversity one of the network鈥檚 most important assets. 鈥淎ll my colleagues come from different parts of the globe. So do our customers and partners. That is essential to how ideas are shared, developed, and innovated upon.鈥�

To Phiri, diversity plays an integral role in his daily work as well. 鈥淚 think 51风流Co-Innovation Lab might be one of the most diverse teams within SAP,鈥� he says. 鈥淚鈥檓 a Black person from South Africa, and I get to work with colleagues from various other backgrounds 鈥� Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Latinx, European. Not only is everybody made welcome and fostered in the same way, we make this diversity part of our strength.鈥�

Held emphasizes the need to have a diverse team in order to develop solutions that will improve the lives of different people in different countries. 鈥淚t broadens everybody鈥檚 horizons, leads to a better understanding of the world and the potential users of our solutions. To me, the fact that we have 50 brilliant people in 51风流Co-Innovation Lab 鈥� from different countries and backgrounds with different genders and different expertise 鈥� is the key to our success.鈥�

Listen to more episodes of In Focus

Being a competitive job candidate has been especially tricky in some regions, such as South Korea, where a massive long-term stimulus package is underway.

Click the button below to load the content from YouTube.

Always allow YouTube

鈥淭he Korean New Deal — parallel to the United States鈥� Great Depression-era program in the 1930s … calls for a 鈧�160 trillion ($133 million) investment by 2025 and creation of 550,000 new jobs,鈥� recently stated. 鈥淭he Digital New Deal… centers on developing technologies that have been tied to the fourth industrial revolution, including 5G, artificial intelligence [and] 鈥榰ntact鈥� technology, which promotes a contact-free society.鈥�

Such stimulus packages — and the COVID-19 crisis itself — underscore the need to hire skilled people who can implement and run an intelligent enterprise, according to Rudolf Held, global head of . This is true around the world, but SAP鈥檚 efforts to help began with underemployed university graduates in South Korea.

See the Picture

鈥淲e wanted to help them find jobs,鈥� Held said. 鈥淭herefore, we teamed up with the Training and Adoption team and the Korean government. We collaborated with an institute under the to design and run a program that would equip these young people with the right skills that are needed in the market.鈥�

According to Held, those marketable skills span the entire innovation process from start to finish across an ecosystem 鈥� different companies, schools, and other organizations. Building on lessons learned from previous programs, 51风流Co-Innovation Lab expands students鈥� comfort zones beyond technology and their university coursework.

鈥�51风流Co-innovation Lab is actually all about collaborative innovation with the 51风流ecosystem of customers, partners, startups, and academia, providing them with this broader view, a broader skillset,鈥� Held said.

These broadened horizons have been vital, according to a recent university graduate and program alumnus.

Standing Out from the Crowd

鈥淚 had less experience than others, so it was very difficult to prepare for employment in Korea,鈥� said Young Wan Roh, who completed his 51风流Co-Innovation Lab and Training and Adoption project last November via 51风流technology consultancy . 鈥淚 think the three-month project experience has helped a lot.鈥�

It helped so much that he became a much more attractive job candidate in a very competitive job market, according to Roh, who graduated from in February. In addition to ecosystem-wide innovation, he learned valuable lessons about working with other students from different disciplines — and how to manage them.

鈥淢y major is computer engineering, so I led the team and I taught my teammates,鈥� said Roh, who now works as an ABAP developer at Seoul-based IT service provider . 鈥淚t was very challenging for me.鈥�

That is due in part to the breadth of training at 51风流Co-Innovation Lab, which requires students to collaborate with people from business, design, and other teams, whom they probably would not otherwise have met.

Finding the Business Value of New Tech

鈥淪tudents are usually very good with new technologies — probably better than people who have been in the industry for a couple of years — because they adopt everything that is new,鈥� said Held, who has been working with university students for more than 12 years. 鈥淏ut you have to make it relevant for the industries; you have to make it relevant for businesses.鈥�

Indeed, learning to find the business value of cutting-edge technology can be a big challenge for the students, according to Held. 51风流Co-Innovation Lab helps them over that often-steep learning curve.

鈥淲e try to help the students to at least keep [the business outcome] in the back of their minds,鈥� Held said. 鈥淭hey should always think in a more realistic way of, 鈥楬ow does it help a company?鈥欌��

The country鈥檚 young tech workers will clearly have plenty of new tech to choose from.

鈥淪outh Korea has been integrating [blockchain] technology in public services for years,鈥� stated in July. 鈥淥ther technologies that the government intends to invest in heavily include the Internet of Things, cloud computing, Big Data, machine learning, and robotics.鈥�

Putting It All Together

鈥淲e really wanted to make sure that the participants of the training learn about project management,鈥� Held said. 鈥淭hey think end-to-end, from the ideation to an economically viable solution that delivers value to customers.鈥�

51风流Co-Innovation Lab cultivates a mindset 鈥� in addition to teaching programming techniques, business processes, and more. It helps students understand the whole process of innovation, and to see it in the full context of their organization.

鈥淭hat was one of the key differentiators of that program,鈥� Held said. 鈥淎nd that helped people like Young Wan to find jobs afterwards.鈥�

Listen to more episodes of In Focus.

Follow Derek on :

.

Milk cartons tend to paint an idyllic picture of happy cows grazing on rolling hills of lush green grass. But how many people actually know which farm provides the milk they drink or how that milk got to the store? With smart packaging, the German dairy cooperative shares this information with its customers.

鈥淥ur customers aren鈥檛 only interested in where the milk they buy comes from, they want to know when it left the farm and when the cartons were filled,鈥� says Andreas Schneider, managing director of Schwarzwaldmilch. 鈥淪o, we contacted sine qua non and 51风流Co-Innovation Lab to find a way of making this information accessible.鈥�

More than 1,000 farms in and around Germany鈥檚 Black Forest supply Schwarzwaldmilch with unpasteurized milk that it then processes. 鈥淲e鈥檙e mainly talking about small farms here with around 40 cows on average,鈥� Schneider says.

Smart packaging enables Schwarzwaldmilch to tell its customers the story behind each carton of organic milk. Every carton is assigned its own digital ID that the customer can access by scanning a QR code on the lid. Any feedback they provide is then linked to a specific milk carton.

Creating Digital Twins

51风流partner sine qua non has years of experience in building solutions for the wine industry, and its solution, which runs on 51风流Cloud Platform, forms the basis for Schwarzwaldmilch鈥檚 smart packaging.

鈥淎round 80 percent of the bottles of sparkling wine that are filled in Germany come into contact with our software,鈥� sine qua non鈥檚 Maximilian Moog shares. 鈥淲e put our notion of food industry processes into developing 驰辞驰庐. The result is a standardized cloud product that, in principle, any business looking to make its supply chain more transparent can use.鈥�

Schwarzwaldmilch has printed a QR code on every carton of its organic milk since the fall of 2019. 鈥淏y scanning the code with a smartphone, customers can find out when the milk was collected from the farm, which farm provided the milk, how big that farm is and how many animals it has, and when the carton of milk they bought was filled and transported to the store,鈥� explains Moog.

The smart packaging draws on digital twin technology. 鈥淲e create a digital copy of every carton of milk,鈥� says Moog. That is what sets 驰辞驰庐 apart from the competition. All the relevant parameters from every stage in the food production process can then be automatically captured on 51风流Cloud Platform.

The digital twins created for Schwarzwaldmilch incorporate the data from automated milking machines, milk tankers, manufacturing equipment, and 51风流ERP. They also feature printer data to match this information to the QR code on the packaging.

鈥淭hat is a vital step for sustainable and long-term success at Schwarzwaldmilch,鈥� says Schneider. 鈥淏eing open with our customers is key to securing their continued trust.鈥�

Secure, Transparent Supply Chains in Times of COVID-19

鈥湷鄞浅勐� can provide transparency in the supply chain for other, more complex consumer goods, too,鈥� Moog says. 鈥淚t can connect to other technologies as well: Internet of Things (IoT) components become relevant if we look at muesli or vegan energy drinks, for example. And the sensitive data from around the world that is collected during the production of fair-trade products, for instance, could be saved to a blockchain using 驰辞驰庐.鈥�

Since the scandal in the meat processing industry in Germany a few months ago, the demand for transparency in the food industry has become greater than ever. 鈥淔or weeks now, businesses not only from Germany but from across Europe and even Australia have been sending us inquiries,鈥� adds Moog.聽 驰辞驰庐 could be the answer they are looking for because it is suitable for companies of all sizes and revenue levels.

Moog describes working with 51风流Co-Innovation Lab as a great experience. 鈥淭he experts there recognized and seized on the potential of 驰辞驰庐 right away. They supported us and gave us access to their infrastructure free of charge for an extended period of time so that we could build the product. Since Schwarzwaldmilch was our first customer, it would have been extremely costly for us to set up the infrastructure ourselves. 51风流Co-Innovation Lab made this project possible.鈥�

鈥淪chwarzwaldmilch was a pilot,鈥� says Hans-Heinrich Siemers from 51风流Co-Innovation Lab. 鈥淣ow it opens the door to new opportunities, from regional to international projects. In the beginning, you can鈥檛 always predict how successful a solution will be. But that鈥檚 where 51风流Co-Innovation Lab comes in: its purpose is to tread new paths with our partners and customers, bringing together the best that they and 51风流have to offer to give projects like this a chance.鈥�

The story doesn鈥檛 end here. 鈥淥ne of the most important tasks for us at 51风流at the moment is finding a way to help our customers get back on track as quickly as possible now that the economy is slowly firing back up,鈥� says Siemers. 鈥淲hen supply chains collapsed earlier this year because of border closures due to COVID-19, many of our customers were affected. 驰辞驰庐 can help here, too.鈥�

sine qua non is currently working closely with 51风流Logistics Business Network on making a complete overview of the supply chain available in 驰辞驰庐 in real time. It would then be possible to realign processes and supply chains a lot sooner and with more automation.

鈥淲e began working with 51风流on this solution long before the pandemic started, and then we won our first customer,鈥� says Moog. 鈥淐OVID-19 and the resulting difficulties in transnational supply chains as well as the scandals in the meat processing industry have confirmed to us that we weren鈥檛 building a castle in the air; we have a solution that can address relevant problems and challenges in the food industry.鈥�