Successful in the data age - with new standards

Standard platforms proved unsuitable

TkMIoT started by examining the commercially available options. Unfortunately, it was found that there was no suitable architecture for the requirements specified here, and above all the available platforms were not flexible enough. In addition, the standard solutions were extremely complex and did not support the type of networked data acquisition at the edge, as required by tkMIoT.

tkMIoT was therefore forced to develop its own integrated IIoT platform with which the company's digital requirements for system integration and shop floor services could be met in a tailor-made end-to-end solution. The platform is called toii and the entire machine park is now connected to it. This was made possible mainly because toii also supports the communication of various machines and production systems from different manufacturers.

 The toii platform developed by thyssenekrupp Materials IoI is at the heart of significant increases in performance and is now available to all companies worldwide.

Intel: high-tech for high-performance E2C solutions

For this project, tkMIoT decided on a large number of hardware and software components from Intel®. The standard servers are equipped with scalable Intel® Xeon® processors as well as SATA and NVMe-based Intel® SSDs . These are operated via a 10 GBE Intel Ethernet network interface card (NIC) . Industrial PCs (IPCs) with Intel Core ™ i3 and i5 processors and high-performance Intel Ethernet controllers are also used. "We chose Intel as our partner because Intel has a comprehensive architecture and first-class edge-to-cloud technology," says tkMIoT managing director Sebastian Lang.

50% less downtime and 20% more output

tkMIoT was able to achieve considerable success with its solution. The platform's simple user interface offers very efficient and ergonomic operator guidance, which has made it possible to significantly improve all processes. There are also clearly measurable successes: downtimes have been reduced by up to 50 percent and production has increased by 20 percent.

From an individual project to an industry solution

Right from the start of the project, tkMIoT had a great vision that went beyond the digital transformation of its own factories. The aim was to share toii with other manufacturers in order to advance the introduction of Industry 4.0 worldwide. Based on the comprehensive architecture of Intel, its first-class edge-to-cloud technology and a strong partner network, the decision was quickly made to market toii as an "Intel IoT Market Ready Solutions".

Today toii is a widely used and qualitatively demanding industry platform that enables many manufacturers to advance their digitization projects faster.