FUCHS goes digital

The CD was an amazing invention back in the day. So many songs on one disk and you didn't even need to turn it over. With the CD came the DVD – whole films fit on it. And today? Today, they have long been replaced by streaming services of every kind. It's a similar situation with fax machines, digital cameras, or cell phones – and could conceivably be the case for the lubricants industry, too. “Disruptive innovation” is the key word. These often begin as products or services for small niche applications that established companies don't consider a threat, but which then have a disruptive influence on the market. They can take established companies so much by surprise that even completely new competitors threaten to oust them from the market. Yet established companies are successful in the long term precisely because they make only moderate use of innovations, thereby offering the customer continuity and reliability. It's a real dilemma.

Old heroes – Disruptive technologies are nothing new

Less is more

This is why, with its own digital strategy, FUCHS set out on a transformation process years ago. The Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, and innovative business models are all aspects which FUCHS carefully addressed a long while ago in order to develop new approaches using small, agile teams who often come up with unusual ideas that go beyond day-to-day business.

Several digital services and products have already been brought to market maturity in this way. Dr. Matthias Marquart has taken on the new position of Chief Digital Officer in the FUCHS Group and is working on advancing this digitalization process. The aim is to relieve the customer of tiresome tasks through automation and telemetry, to streamline processes, and to reduce downtimes to a minimum – a key strength of digital technologies and a broad field for new business models.

No more replenishment concerns

One digital product that is already achieving success is SmartLevel, an IoT solution for monitoring the level of lubricant tanks and automatically reordering engine oil in auto repair shops.

“Many workshop operators know the problem that FUCHS SmartLevel solves”, explains Dr. Matthias Marquart. The levels of their engine oil tanks need to be read manually. However, these tanks are often located in hard-to-reach places and are checked only rarely as a result. Often, no one notices that the lubricant is running low until it is almost gone, and the replenishment order is triggered too late. “SmartLevel networks FUCHS with the lubricant tank,” says Dr. Marquart. If the level falls below a certain threshold, the level sensor automatically sends an email to the Sales department and orders another delivery. “This gets rid of the obstacles to interaction between Sales and the customer,” says Dr. Marquart.

Other perspectives

How do such products come about? By changing perspective: “We're moving away from the question of how FUCHS can offer the customer an even better lubricant and toward the question of how FUCHS can help the customer to optimize their business,” says Dr. Marquart. “Often, the result is not a new fluid, but rather a sensor system for example.” It is important to remain focused on the customer in new business models – whether they're digital or analog.

The developers of SmartLevel first conducted a small market research study among workshop operators: How do they order, how do they store the goods, how do they communicate with FUCHS? The result? Even if the customer notices that the tank is almost empty in time, there are still obstacles to overcome. The requirement to reorder oil needs to make its way from everyday workshop activity at the tank and into the office – and then the order needs to be placed. This can be a challenge if several hours go by or many other activities need to be done between checking the tank and next stopping by the office. If this procedure is automated, it does away with the order process and completely eliminates the danger of running out of oil.

Fluid state monitoring in metalworking

SmartLevel is not the only digital product that FUCHS already has in its portfolio. The Fluid Analyzer is another example: It is a sensor unit that monitors the pH value or conductivity of metalworking fluids in machine tools. The better the fluid is calibrated, the better the process runs. Testing is normally performed manually. The Fluid Analyzer – which is a fixed installation – checks the values automatically and transmits the results to the FUCHS FluidsConnect database.

Based on the data gathered, the customer sees a dashboard with a status display. This gives them an overview of the current quality of the metalworking fluid in their machine. If the pH-value exceeds a threshold the dashboard issues an alarm. The particular difficulty with this application is that the sensor system has to perform a chemical analysis. This is a complex task involving vague measurements. The system needs to be able to cope with this – which requires great expertise in handling lubricants and their behaviors when it comes to the design.

Into the digital future

Such automated procedures mean an increase in efficiency for the customer. However, they can also enable FUCHS to optimize internal processes such as logistics. What's more, digitalization offers three more big advantages for the lubricant producer: It creates special knowledge of the customer, boosts the producer's own operating excellence, and successfully shifts their business model.

If we think further in this direction, the opportunities for development are virtually limitless. “After all, FUCHS' business is based on its knowledge of lubricants. And this knowledge can be transformed into logics. Logics that can be used to predict the behavior of a lubricant in a customer's planned application, for example,” concludes Dr. Marquart. It's certainly very interesting for simulation based product developments – even if that is a long way in the future.