Jowat Magazine 2015-09 EN

05 the abrasion of a cutter head, and help him to remedy the problem. Then, the customer can plan the exchange of parts in time and minimize the effect on processing. In contrast to common procedures today, maintenance work will not be performed after regular periods, but only when necessary – and in time to avoid malfunctions. The customer profits from an individualised service with variable maintenance cycles, more reliability and flexibility. The distributor no longer sells machines with a service life of five years, but he offers for instance 5,000 machine hours with the guarantee that the machine will always be up to date. Example CLAAS: Improved field management and crop efficiency Numerous sectors already use M2M communication. It opens up a huge spectrum of new application opportunities and break ground into completely new dimensions. Agricul- tural engineering is a pioneer when it comes to Industry 4.0/ M2M. This industrial branch is characterised by very hetero- geneous machine parks with high machine costs and a low degree of network coverage - confronted with high compe- tition similar to other sectors. Despite this, more than 140 differentmanufacturersofagriculturalengineeringtechnology from around the world have worked together for many years now to implement a common, global standard for tractors and tools, called ISOBUS. This provided excellent conditions for a cooperation project that aims especially at synchronising and optimising the value chain of different manufacturers and was recently awarded by the “Germany – Land of Ideas” initiative. During this project, the agricultural machinery manu- facturer CLAAS, the company VIVAI Software AG from Dortmund and the Dortmund University of Applied Scien- ces and Arts developed “M2M Teledesk” together, for improved field management and more efficient harves- ting. All business processes and market participants, like farmers, distributors, contractors and consultants can be interlinked via this integration platform. Individual machi- nes, like combine harvesters, transport vehicles and silage compactors are coordinated during harvesting to create a continuous process chain. Unnecessary waiting times and expensive downtimes are avoided and defective machi- nes are recognised before they stop working. Furthermore, operating information can be collected very easily and documentation requirements become less complicated (e.g. mapping areas with fertiliser application or recording where, when and which pesticide was used). nnected the key to success

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