Claus Michael Sattler

In the digital transformation, there are two perspectives on reality.

1. The physically tangible reality: people, machines, tools, workpieces and processes.
2. The data that people, machines, tools and workpieces generate during a process and that represent the digital twin.

What did Prof. Dr. Karl Schmedders in his lecture last weekend at the IMD Business School International Institute for Management Development (IMD), in Lausanne, Switzerland, when he repeatedly spoke of “garbage in, garbage out!”?

Here is an example from my lecture at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland, last weekend: “A company asked me to use the amount of data from the last 40 years (170 TB) to determine the dependencies of a production process on macroclimate and microclimate so that these findings can be incorporated into forecast models for future product developments.” What does that have to do with “garbage in, garbage out!”? Here three examples:

1. The production data determined by the programmable logic controller (PLC) could be exported. For example, the PLCs provided us with the raw data for a switchable valve: date, time and switching direction (open or close). Statistical analyzes and stochastic forecasts for the task could not be calculated with this raw data. We needed the time between two circuits. These had to be calculated first.
2. Furthermore, we needed macro climate data from the region and micro climate data from the production buildings. We were able to purchase the macro-climate data from a weather data provider. The microclimate data were available in encrypted form on data loggers. Export software for the encrypted data did not exist and the data logger manufacturer refused to develop it. There were only cumulative daily values printed out on thermal paper. The microclimate data were de facto not available in usable digital form.
3. The employees in the R&D department and in production had agreed on a format for the documentation so that the data could be compared with each other. The problem was that this data format was individually extended or shortened by the employees. It was not possible to automatically read in the 1.4 million files and evaluate the measured values.

I describe in my book “Simply think data differently! Companies’ undiscovered gold!”, which will be released in Q4.2023, and in the online events of “Mittelstand GOES Digital 4.0”.