IO-Link to MQTT: Connecting Sensor Data Without Touching the Controller

Madeleine:

Hello, dear friends of IoT. If you work in a mid-sized company or in a manufacturing plant, or if you're a machine builder or OEM who needs to connect a machine in the field at a customer site, then you're in exactly the right place today. We're answering a few questions that reach us from our IoT Use Case community. Namely: We've got the data now, but how does it actually get out of the machine? Where do we start? Or: Sensor to Cloud is the basic buzzword, and now via MQTT as well – how does that actually work?

Or the classic one: We have IO-Link, MQTT sounds good somehow, but who's going to configure it here? And what does it actually cost to connect a plant? That kind of thing, and a few more points – that's what we're discussing today. So it's about the question: How do I connect my plant? And today we're doing that very concretely, based on a product in use from our IoT partner Turck. I think they're well known as a major automation supplier.

Specifically, today is about the Turck Automation Suite, TAS. What that's all about, we'll find out shortly. And I have two experts with me today: one with more of a focus on the cloud and the other more from the technical side – a great combination. I hope you enjoy listening, and as always you'll find all the information on implementing projects like this one at iotusecase.com and in the show notes. And with that I'd say: off to the podcast studio. Let's go!

And with that, hello Christoph Rose and Christoph Schmermund. Now I have to be careful with all the Christophs here. Let me start with you: Christoph Rose, how are you doing today?

Christoph Rose:

Quite well, thanks. The weekend is coming up here and the weather is nice, and I have to say: the week is done, and now, as the very last thing before we get there, we're recording the podcast.

Madeleine:

Wonderful, that's nice. I'm thinking a bit about what to call you two. Maybe I'll just call you the Cloud Christoph – can we do that? Or Christoph, the cloud expert.

Christoph Rose:

We can do that. At school people always used my surname, because somehow there were four Christophs and one Christian in the class. And now we keep ending up in this situation with Christoph and Christoph again. I'll be the Cloud Christoph.

Madeleine:

Okay, I like that. And hello Christoph Schmermund, over to you as well. How are you doing today?

Christoph Schmermund:

I'm doing well too – for me it's even just before my holiday, so …

Madeleine:

Fantastic, that's how it should be. Great. I'd say we go straight into the topic, Cloud Christoph. You're Product Manager Cloud and Software at Turck. You've been with us here for about nine months, I believe, and you're primarily responsible for the TAS Cloud. But you originally come from mechanical engineering – I'll come back to that in a moment – where you built up a cloud solution yourself on the user side. Now you're on the other side, the supplier side at Turck.

You'll tell us in a moment what exactly TAS or your cloud is. But first a question for you: What was your personal motivation? Why did you actually move from a machine builder to Turck, and why have you stayed loyal to this digitalization field? That's something I'd be personally interested in.

Christoph Rose:

Let me start with the second part: the digitalization field. I simply find it exciting. That's actually how I got into automation in the first place, ten years ago with remote maintenance and so on, and then over the last five years in the cloud area – or by now almost eight years.

It was simply exciting. And why change when so much is happening in that field? Because you have exactly this automation area – machines, real machines, and software together. I find that exciting. And why Turck? Well, the opportunity came up, to be perfectly honest. Moving from "I build my own cloud for a mid-sized company, for one company" to doing that with a larger company, a larger team, internationally as well.

It was simply exciting. That's what led to the move to Turck, and let's put it this way: I'm still here.

Madeleine:

Yes, it's a nice environment. It's a really exciting environment too – what's happening at your company right now is remarkable. And the market is changing fast as well. So it's good that you're being that innovative in the market. Christoph Schmermund, over to you: You're Product Manager for the Turck Automation Suite, TAS, the abbreviation I mentioned earlier – with Turck since 2009, I believe, originally focused on RFID, and since 2022 more on the software side.

And you're responsible for various product areas within your software solution. We'll come to that shortly. Now, you know the technical side particularly well – device connectivity, connecting things up. Thinking about your customer conversations: Can you give us a sense of how much effort or working time, maybe lost time, actually goes into a classic device connection? And which part of that effort would make you say: wow, that's the thing people always underestimate, that's what eats up the most time? That's what I'd like to start with, to put the pain point on the table – what we're actually talking about today.

Christoph Schmermund:

Exactly, yes, that's a very important topic. There's one side that Turck has of course specialized in: our sensors, actuators and lights, which are connected to control systems and of course support the control protocols, deliver information to the controllers through them, and of course have actions executed. So in production plants, in machines, in logistics and in all kinds of applications.

Then the topic came up more and more – and that was also the birth of TAS – that people would prefer to send the data to IT and cloud systems. And that's where the whole thing started. The topic has been around for a while. In the past, the approach was always that the controller collects the data, and then people tried to pass the data on to IT and cloud systems via interfaces.

That whole approach creates a lot of dependencies on the controller, of course, and drove the effort up enormously. It meant that the people who wanted data from IT always had to go to the PLC programmers. They then had to touch their control program. Which of course also meant extensive testing – with control programs those are particularly critical. So it had to be tested again, released, uploaded, and then IT would say: but for Condition Monitoring and Predictive Maintenance we need one more data value. And then the whole thing started over from the beginning, and the effort and dependencies were enormously high, which made the whole topic very difficult and time-consuming.

Now you always have to look at the specific case, of course: What example are we dealing with? A small robot cell? An entire production line? How big is the whole setup? The bigger it is, the more extensive the modifications and testing become. But we're easily talking about several days that all of this had to take – all the modifications, all the testing, rolling the whole thing out towards the new world.

Madeleine:

A quick question, just so I've understood it correctly: So this is about the fact that up to now you took the data directly from the PLC in order to write it into a system of your choice, and to implement the use cases with it. And that was more or less the old world. We'll get to the new world in a moment, to explain it in more practical terms.

That means, for example: A customer says, okay, we now need a particular data point, let's say a temperature value. And then six months later a colleague comes along and says, actually, for our use case we now need humidity as well. That would be a case where you'd have to configure the PLC again, adjust it. That's the effort you mean, right? Have I understood that correctly?

Christoph Schmermund:

Exactly, that's the heart of it: as soon as you have additional data points – so first the initial effort of setting it up at all, and then for every extension. That's exactly a good example with temperature and humidity, where this effort repeats itself.

Christoph Rose:

I can actually speak from my own experience here. As I said, I haven't been at Turck all that long, and I came in to bring the TAS Cloud to market and develop it further. And part of that was of course: we have various exhibits that we take to trade fairs, and those needed to be connected to the new cloud as well. For me, CODESYS and all of that was new – I had previously worked with the typical Siemens and other systems.

Now, our PLCs run on CODESYS. And it was just a matter of loading the existing things across. And to be perfectly honest, that took more than a week – simply because you obviously have to install things, you need the right versions, it's all in the project, you have to reconfigure the sensors accordingly, and so on and so on. So it really did take, unfortunately I have to say, more than a week.

I'd claim of myself that I'm not entirely incapable. And then the topic of TAS Edge came up, which is what today is about, where the whole point is that you don't collect the data from the controller. So no program modifications, but instead going directly via our I/O modules. And on the trade fair stand I managed that within two hours.

Madeleine:

Okay, that's great. That's a nice example of how you can simply make this easier now. I think we'll describe it again shortly, and we'll also get to what exactly TAS Edge means. Just briefly for anyone who doesn't know CODESYS: it's a programming environment, if you like, for the PLC – essentially software where you can program the whole thing. And that's also something where a lot of people who are PLC programmers themselves know their way around very well, but perhaps those who are newly working on these projects don't necessarily. So this makes things somewhat easier now.

Christoph Rose:

Exactly, just so it's clear: compared to something like Siemens with the TIA Portal, where you really are tied to one manufacturer, CODESYS is not tied to a single manufacturer – there are many different automation suppliers that support it as well.

Madeleine:

By the way, a shoutout to everyone working with CODESYS, or to the CODESYS folks: we could do an episode too. I've thought about it anyway, because I keep running into them at trade fairs and they've got some new developments as well. But that shouldn't be today's topic. Christoph, I've just interrupted you on the technical side. You'd just described the old way – out of the PLC and so on. So what does the new way look like? I think that's where you left off.

Christoph Schmermund:

Maybe a quick addition to what we just covered: The new way works entirely without programming, at least for connecting to the IT world. Let's take one of our customer applications as an example: a welding robot cell. In the welding robot cell you have the welding tip changer and the tip dresser. Those are connected together via IO-Link.

And then we have the control system on the robot, where the robot program runs. On its own, that works autonomously to begin with. The tip is always taken to this tip dresser and dressed, in order to maintain quality and also minimize wear. So that part runs.

What's missing for the customer, of course, is being able to access any data outside the OT world at all. So he has no information whatsoever about the condition of his tip and his dressing tools, how many cycles it has already run, what the dressing times are in each case, and so on. So all this information, which is actually available down at the OT system, simply isn't available in the IT world. To change that, someone would have to intervene in this robot and control program, then program the whole thing manually via interfaces – and then we're back to programming and building interfaces.

That works differently now with TAS Edge. We bring TAS Edge into the network, for example via a device – which is available with or without a display. So with a display you can additionally provide direct access for the operator on site, but you can also use it without one. And this device with TAS Edge then sits in both the OT and the IT network, and can bring the two together – it acts as an intermediary, in effect. That's also very important in terms of security: that we can keep them separate, so that not just anyone from the IT systems can suddenly make changes in the OT network. The Edge runs on it and is then automatically the intermediary.

And then there's a UI-based configuration for it in the web browser. And we're only talking about a UI here – entering a value here and there with a few clicks, and no more programming at all. There you map the data points that you want to have sent up. In that step you can also influence the frequency, and then you get the data delivered up to the IT systems with the valuable information in it.

Madeleine:

By IT system, do you mean – because a lot of people say, well, we already have the data in our MES. Or do you mean the cloud systems above all, where the use cases run? Or does it not actually matter which IT system it is, just to put that in context?

Christoph Schmermund:

Yes, so that includes ERP, MES, cloud systems, SCADA systems – everything. They're all in the IT domain, and today's MES systems of course also have to fetch the data from the OT world via interfaces. And that's now even easier with TAS Edge. Previously they created the interfaces themselves. Now, with TAS Edge, they effectively get the interfaces and the simple configuration delivered to them. They just bring it into the network, select the data points, and then get the data delivered to their systems.

Madeleine:

Okay, so if I understand correctly, the Edge is a kind of software component within your Turck Automation Suite. So the sensor data is read out directly – IO-Link sensor data, for example, but any sensor data really. And without the PLC programming, so without all that effort, it's then forwarded. How is it forwarded? Which technology?

Christoph Schmermund:

We use MQTT for that. The messages are then sent accordingly via MQTT. Something else that's very important: TAS Edge runs in parallel to the control program, but is completely independent of it – it can even run and collect data and forward it upwards without a controller being present at all. So we have zero dependencies, and there doesn't even have to be a controller for TAS Edge to work. Those are the key points: we lose this dependency and also that entire programming component compared to what existed as the old solution.

Madeleine:

Now a question comes to mind, because many manufacturing companies, or perhaps OEMs as well – although they're often committed to one automation supplier – do want to be somewhat open. So, sorry, let me ask this provocatively: Why should anyone take your TAS Edge? You know what I mean – people immediately think, well, then I'll need the Turck hardware too, I'll have to buy everything from a single source, and so on. So why your TAS Edge?

Christoph Rose:

That brings us back to what I said at the beginning: this one week versus two hours. So the focus really is on this topic of simplicity. It means you already have, or you simply want, sensors, and I want to get this data into a third-party system. And then it's simply a question of effort. Is this something where I need the specialist who's tied up in 10,000 other projects and actually has no time for it? Maybe I have to shut the plant down in order to be able to modify the PLC program at all, and so on.

For us it ultimately comes down to this: at Turck there's a very strong focus on decentralized automation. And that's actually how this whole TAS topic came about, where the point was to manage and configure distributed installations, or I/O modules and so on, with everything that goes with it.

And then to collect all that data accordingly and say: okay, now I want to send it into a target system. That can be an on-prem MES, a CMMS, some other system, or a cloud. And building this bridge between "I have sensors" and "I want to send the data to a third-party system via MQTT" – that's where we come in with TAS Edge. And I've had a look at a few systems and know various systems from earlier on as well: this really is extremely simple and extremely convenient.

Madeleine:

Nice. It's interesting that you use MQTT, because it's a lightweight protocol and makes a lot of things simpler. Although I'm not sure how many companies are already using it. I think a lot of them go the classic route with OPC UA for the connection and then forward it from there. I don't know how many companies already …

Christoph Schmermund:

And be available, of course. We're also correspondingly open with our solution. We support every IO-Link device on the market. Around 20,000 devices.

Madeleine:

That's a lot.

Christoph Schmermund:

Exactly, it really is a lot. Those can be IO-Link valves, it can be anything from the IO-Link world. IO-Link valves, for instance, which deliver diagnostic information about whether there's a leak, so a loss of tightness. We support all these IO-Link devices with TAS Edge, which gives us enormous openness there.

And we're extending the whole thing to analog and digital devices as well. So the connected devices don't have to come from us at all – we're completely compatible there. It's the IO-Link masters through which we collect the data, and where we also deliver the added value, because we know how to get at our data easily and make it available.

And that's exactly what TAS Edge is aimed at. But at the lower level we're completely open. Going forward, we'll also offer further connectors in TAS Edge, in order to connect other MQTT devices and collect their data accordingly as well. So openness is on our radar too. Naturally we still have to make sure we play to the advantages our system gives us in accessing the data. So that's built in accordingly, of course.

We fully understand the customers' demands regarding openness, and as I said, we're already at a device list of over 20,000, and further connectors will follow.

Madeleine:

For anyone who isn't familiar with IO-Link masters: it's essentially a kind of link, or a connecting element, between the sensor and the rest of the network. I could put a few IO-Link masters from Turck and other manufacturers in the show notes. And I imagine you may already have your own there.

I have one more short follow-up question, then we can go over to Cloud Christoph. Does it have to be IO-Link, briefly? Or is it also – if I take the robot example, where the case was: I need the condition of the tip, cycle times, whatever it may be. I have the robot PLC or controller running there, I may have an additional sensor, I have further sensors in the plant, and not all of it is IO-Link. What do I do then?

Christoph Schmermund:

Well, our IO-Link master already handles digital and analog anyway, but with the upcoming release in September we're making sure that TAS supports all Turck analog and digital stations as well, which means any digital or analog sensor can be connected below them. Exactly the same for RFID. We've also got roller motor control and things like that in there. So this whole breadth that you know from automation technology is already partly in there, but more and more is coming, so that we really can access every kind of data.

IO-Link has the appealing advantage that an enormous amount of data, diagnostic data, is already available in the IO-Link master. That's what makes it particularly attractive and appealing. But of course we have the other data on our radar as well, and the goal is naturally to be able to deliver all the relevant data upwards. And that's why we're expanding it accordingly.

Christoph Rose:

Well, it's simply about this: of course we have different products for different application areas, and TAS Edge is really this focus: we want to deliver sensor data into a third-party system very easily. And with us that works via our I/O, so via our masters – whether that's digital, analog, IO-Link and so on.

That means with IO-Link I always have a sensor that has to be connected to a master, and this master is then connected to a controller, for example. At Turck we're always multi-protocol capable anyway, which means PROFINET, EtherNet/IP and so on are all supported, Modbus TCP. If it's OPC UA, you can do that via CODESYS as well. So there's already a great deal of openness, and as I said, with CODESYS you can do practically anything. But then it's naturally a more complicated system, and that's why there's this particular focus with TAS Edge.

We want simple solutions for simple applications – which doesn't mean they aren't large applications. So simple refers to the configuration, but it could well be a case where you say, I have 100 different masters here with 800 sensors on them. And I can roll that out through it as well, use it, and deliver it to a third-party system. And that's roughly where our focus lies with TAS Edge: creating this interface. Because that really is an effort that is consistently underestimated in terms of how much work it is.

I also know it from earlier on: I had a manufacturer where it was about PLC control for wind turbines, and they really did keep a virtual machine for every single wind turbine – a virtual PC with the corresponding program on it, along with the programming environment, the libraries and so on, because things simply kept changing. And PLCs are, let's say, quite particular in that sense: I need exactly the right setup, otherwise I have to update all sorts of things. It's simply an enormous amount of work. And especially given the shortage of skilled workers, that becomes even more complicated, because you say: the few experts you have are not the ones you want to use just to add one more sensor value.

Madeleine:

Yes, it's an enormous amount of work. Do you have any figures on time or anything else that helps people understand what that actually means in numbers, in facts?

Christoph Rose:

Again I can speak from my own experience: what do I cost for a week compared to two hours? What does a day or an hour from a freelancer cost, if you don't have experts in-house, compared to "anyone can do this"? As far as the connection is concerned, it's also about – and this was the example for us – enabling our own sales people to demonstrate and set up something like this themselves. So they don't need a PLC programmer from our technical team to build a demo, they can do it entirely on their own.

Madeleine:

Yes, I said in the intro as well: we have IO-Link devices, MQTT sounds good, but who configures it here? Which means in this case even your sales team would be able to do it on site.

Christoph Rose:

That really is the aspiration: that it's genuinely this simple – clicking it together, simply saying: we have the data, we have the sensor, and this is where it should go. Of course there are details you have to discuss. So if we're talking about MQTT: what are the topics called? The topic is the endpoint I send it to. MQTT is structured in such a way that I always have a name, essentially, which then maps out a hierarchy.

Madeleine:

A topic would be something like cycle, or similar.

Christoph Rose:

In some cases there are predefined conventions, in others you have to work it out yourself. In some cases manufacturers specify what it should look like. And we support that in all kinds of variants.

Christoph Schmermund:

Put briefly, the IODD is essentially the description of the API, so that you know what the data point describes. We populate that very easily with TAS Edge as well. Based on the IODDs we know what the points are called and what the values indicate – which humidity, which vibration and so on. That means the values are already output that way and populated that way. So the only thing the customer can do, if he wants to add his own names or designations, is adjust it. Otherwise he can simply take it as we enter it by default.

A sales colleague said to me recently about a presentation that I should take the word MQTT out of the presentation again, because it puts people off immediately. And I said in response: well, the IODD is a topic too, and our sales people already know it that way – if they want to configure an IO-Link device or visualize data, they have to load the IODD.

Madeleine:

Okay, I see.

Christoph Schmermund:

And that's just one click. They click on it once and it's loaded in automatically over the internet. They don't have to do anything manually, and they don't even have to understand what it actually does.

Madeleine:

Just briefly, to bring along anyone who doesn't know what an IODD is.

Christoph Schmermund:

Exactly, the IODD is the description of the IO-Link devices. But they don't need any in-depth understanding of it. They need an IODD, they click once, and it works. And it's the same with TAS Edge. So in TAS Edge they open it, they select their data points via checkboxes. And then they say, for example, that they want to bring it into the TAS Cloud, and then they have to load in a certificate once. That's two or three clicks. But they select the certificate and load it in there.

And the rest via MQTT works completely automatically. So they have nothing to do with MQTT at all and don't need to have any understanding of it. It's good to know that MQTT is running in the background, but then it works by itself. Otherwise they don't need any significant MQTT knowledge or need to know how it works in depth. With IO-Link they need the IODD, and with TAS Edge MQTT runs in the background. You do need a certificate for secure data transmission, but that's it. That's the important part and the key point of the whole thing.

Madeleine:

I have another short question about that – but you wanted to add something? I'll ask my question in a moment.

Christoph Schmermund:

Yes, working with TAS all this time, you naturally follow it closely. You asked about times, or return on investment. In the end, as I already said, it always depends on the application. But in the end you invest one to two hours of effort, where someone clicks through the configuration once and creates an alarm in the cloud and so on. That's one to two hours.

That then ensures that you save several hours, in some cases days, of testing and adjustment time – and extrapolated across 100 machines or production lines, that really does add up financially. And the OT devices are usually already there, because they're needed for the process anyway. With TAS Edge you can also simply retrofit it; nothing has to be changed on the hardware. So you only bring TAS Edge into the network. And then there's a one-off license cost of one hundred euros, and you've retrofitted the whole thing.

Madeleine:

By the way, if you're listening now and thinking, I have a similar case or I'd like to find out more about this: I'll put both of your contact details in the show notes, so feel free to connect and exchange notes on how you're doing it today, to learn a bit from each other's experience – if that's alright with you both.

And Christoph, I have a question, this time in Cloud Christoph's direction: We had our user meeting this morning, and this topic of configuration came up there as well, and the fact that the customer even signs off on it and so on. Is that the same topic? That the effort is simply immense, in the on-site configuration as well, and that the customer partly signs off on all these values – does this make that easier too? Feel free to describe it again in your own words, I just wanted to ask whether it belongs here.

Christoph Rose:

Yes, I mean, that goes a bit in the direction of Factory Acceptance Tests, FAT and so on. And we support that with TAS Desktop. We haven't really mentioned it much so far – we're of course deep in that world. TAS Desktop has been around for a while and is effectively the core piece. And TAS Desktop came about because a configurator was needed for IO-Link, for our devices, for firmware updates, right across the network.

And there you can also do things like, let's say with a few clicks, pull a report across all devices and all masters: how are the sensors configured? And that's then a piece of documentation you can hand over in a case like this, where you say: this here is explicitly what is configured on the devices. And you can then record that and say: that all checks out. And that's also something – this TAS Desktop is free software from us for managing our masters.

Madeleine:

Device management, if you like.

Christoph Rose:

Yes, exactly. Device management, firmware updates, network configuration, but also this topic of batch updates, batch configuration of large numbers of devices. We have various technologies, and all of that runs through TAS Desktop as the core piece. And as I said, it's free software that you can simply download from our website, and you can do all of that with it.

Building on that, we then move towards: if I want to check what's happening on the devices with the sensors, are they configured correctly? You can already do all of that through it. And you can also look at the data there, look at the real-time values, review the configuration again. So a great deal is possible. And that's this topic of acceptance and verification. Let's say the advantage there is: I can genuinely be on the network, and then I can log in to all the devices accordingly and see what's actually happening.

Madeleine:

Perfect. Just for context, if you're listening and briefly wondering what this is about: we have a user meeting once a month where users exchange best practices, and today it was about error handling with PLC data. The point raised by a member of our community was that at customer acceptance the data values simply have to be right. If, for example, there's a wrong serial number or a sensor value – wrong values or something that isn't plausible – then it can no longer be properly compared and verified during the customer appointment, which is why customers often come to the acceptance test. And to avoid that, it's great to learn now that there's also your TAS Desktop, as it's called, for doing something like that. I was just thinking that it's a similar case.

Christoph Rose:

As an addition to that: this brings us to the topic of IO-Link. We touched on it briefly earlier – that's the huge advantage of IO-Link: I don't just have an analog signal from 4 to 20 mA, or 0 to 20 mA, or 0 to 10 volts and so on, but a digital data format where the IODD, the description file, defines very precisely what each data point means, what unit it has, and so on.

And that's the huge advantage of IO-Link: the sensor itself, the device, is identified as well. Which means you can also verify whether the right sensor is connected. Now that sometimes sounds trivial. But if I'm connecting, let's say, 100 cables or 100 sensors and I'm doing it all in analog, then of course I run the risk of simply swapping two cables and having the wrong sensor connected to the wrong port – and who knows when I find that out. I've seen it happen during commissioning.

And that's the huge advantage with IO-Link: the sensor is identified, the data is identified, and I don't have to guess. Integration into control systems for cyclic data is also quite good – most of them offer something there – but you still have to look at it closely.

Madeleine:

And what does that cost?

Christoph Rose:

There too, TAS Desktop is very helpful. We have an integrated interpretation for these IODDs built in, so you can compare directly: have I configured the controller correctly, programmed it correctly, so that the right value really is in there? Those are the kinds of things where I'd say, from practical experience: days can go into working out what's happening here. Or, worse still, you find out after commissioning that at some point, in some situation, something odd is going on, and someone looks at it and says: what's happening there? And only then do you realize the data isn't right at all, because somewhere a cable has been swapped.

Madeleine:

Okay, interesting. Let me summarize it briefly again, because some people may be hearing this for the first time while others already know the terms. So: TAS Desktop is your device management – sorry, put very simply. Then we have TAS Edge, which is essentially the IIoT component, the IIoT integration component, which brings this system together and then forwards it via MQTT into the target system of my choice. That can be your TAS Cloud, as you said, so the manufacturer's cloud, if you like. But it can also be my own, right? I could also say I've got something else running on top.

Christoph Schmermund:

But the first part is additionally our service platform. We'll be establishing more and more services as well. One example is creating automatic backups and restores. It means that when a device is replaced, the entire configuration is restored without anyone having to intervene manually. The device just has to be plugged back in.

Madeleine:

So the faulty device gets replaced.

Christoph Schmermund:

Exactly. We're offering more and more services like this with the Edge in general. We've started with this data collection and forwarding, and the other topics are now coming more and more. So it will become our central service platform.

Madeleine:

That's strong, I like that. And maybe we'll see each other at the trade fair – I'd like to take a look at it on site. You'll be at SPS as well, I believe? Let's arrange a meeting at your stand and simply look at it in practice, I'd say, to see how the whole thing works.

And if you're thinking, hey community, I'd also be interested in exchanging notes with others, seeing how they do it, quite openly: feel free to join us. We have an exchange once a month, there's a tech round and there's a more business-oriented round. How this integration works and so on – just come along, it's free to begin with. I keep a kind of waiting list to make sure the right people are in the room and the exchange stays interesting. Otherwise, if you have a specific topic now, get in touch with Christoph and Christoph Cloud, depending – no, sorry, with Christoph Rose and Christoph Schmermund, and you'll find them in the show notes.

And as the very last question for today: what was your most important operational learning? Because that's something I'm always asked. Something where you'd say, we'd never do it that way again – or: that was brilliant, we'd do it again immediately. What would that be?

Christoph Schmermund:

So far this TAS project has gone really well. At the beginning we didn't really put much emphasis on visibility and so on. Where it did get stuck is really the story we've already touched on today, with sales. Even if you say it's simple, that isn't enough. You really do have to take sales by the hand and show them once or even twice: it really is this simple, and now you try it out yourself – because this basic scepticism is simply there and barriers have been built up.

And getting them to the point where they really do show it at the customer's site and demonstrate that it simply works – that was actually the hardest part, what we struggled with most: overcoming that, bringing sales on board and creating the understanding. It really is this simple, and we're not just saying it, they can believe it too.

Madeleine:

I'll take a look at it at the trade fair.

Christoph Rose:

Yes, exactly. The topic of simplicity really is above everything else. Technically, everything is possible these days; it's all just a question of effort and know-how and who can do it. And with TAS Edge I do think we've built something that meets this aspiration. I focused very much on the technical side at the beginning, with TAS Cloud and so on. And the breakthrough really was this simple connectivity, because that's what makes it genuinely possible to use the opportunities we have today.

Madeleine:

I'll convince myself of that, we'll arrange a meeting at the trade fair. So, many thanks for today's session, it was very interesting. And nicely practical, explained using that one example. You've already spoken nicely about the learnings. If you'd like to add anything, please do – I'd like to hand the last word over to you. From my side, thank you very much for being here today, and have a good rest of the week.

Christoph Rose:

Thank you for having us.

Christoph Schmermund:

We have TAS available free of charge to try out, including a free TAS Edge demo version where you can already do everything – only the time is limited, but you can test everything with it. So we'd like to invite you to simply give it a try.

Christoph Rose:

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Download TAS Desktop and see for yourself.

Madeleine:

Then have a good rest of the week, take care, enjoy your holiday and have a good weekend. And for everyone else: enjoy listening, have fun on your drive or whatever you're doing right now. Take care, bye!

Christoph Rose:

Thanks, bye.