We developed an assembly assistance system for an industrial manufacturing company, making workflows more transparent, reduced the likelihood of errors, and enabled more efficient training.
Sector
Service & Technology
The Challenge
Our client is a multinational company headquartered in Germany that manufactures drive and control technology equipment. Their digital assembly assistance system combines software and hardware to support manual assembly, guiding operators through individual assembly steps, in order to increase process reliability and quality. Its workstation area features several hardware elements (a projector, pickto-light, touchscreen, virtual surfaces and more) as well as software to control them.
Version 1.0 of control software was already available. Additionally, the customer worked with a university team to supply proof-of-concept (PoC) software for novel functions. The customer called on DSS Consulting
- to further develop the codebase of the software
- to integrate the new functions into the application in a production-ready way and
- to develop a full production application package, including license checks and full hardware and software testing, with full quality assurance responsibility for the software
The Solution
As a first step, DSS Consulting thoroughly reviewed the requirements (necessary technologies, methodology, etc.) and acquired the necessary domain expertise. We then assembled the project team, which included three experts from the client’s side, as well as a project manager, a business analyst, three Java developers, two .NET developers, and three testers from DSS Consulting. During the custom development, we used Java for the backend, Angular for the frontend, and .NET for managing the various drivers.
The project faced several major challenges. These stemmed primarily from the complex architecture of the original software – as a result, debugging and fixing errors in the existing software components was no easy task. Integrating the software with various hardware components and their embedded software posed an additional challenge. Finally, the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in March 2020, also posed an obstacle to the project.
However, thanks to the team’s expertise and the client’s support, we were able to overcome these challenges and successfully complete the project.
Technology
Java, .NET, Angular
The Result
The completed software was implemented at several of our client’s manufacturing facilities as well as at other companies’ plants; the installation was carried out by our client’s team. DSS Consulting was subsequently commissioned to develop the next version, which was successfully completed. Further developments were then carried out based on the client’s requests for changes and various modification requests from their partners.
