The flexibility of Simplifier makes it easy to adapt applications to changing requirements in a short time.

Marius Stehling

Global PALFINGER Production System & Industry 4.0 Manager at Palfinger

70 %

faster

Application creation compared to before

50 %

Reduction

of development effort and required roll-out time

50 %

Savings

for development costs for the creation of applications

Realization of a digital request process with the help of low-code

Initial experiences with Simplifier in an Industry 4.0 hackathon were convincing.

The international technology and mechanical engineering company PALFINGER is the world’s leading provider of innovative crane and lifting solutions. Its core product is the hydraulic knuckle boom crane. The cranes are fully configurable. The PALFINGER product range is correspondingly large, offering a wide variety of solutions for the most diverse requirements.

These configurable products are built onto carrier vehicles at the company’s internal Mounting Competence Center (MCC). The vehicle can be from any conceivable manufacturer. There are various options, as PALFINGER not only creates/manufactures the crane superstructure, but also the vehicle construction. This entails a certain amount of engineering work.

However, as is so often the case in life, not everything can be combined with everything. Some wishes are mutually exclusive and should therefore be sifted out in advance during the inquiry process.

Inquiries from dealers and distributors in this regard are currently being sent to Engineering MCC in a wide variety of ways and levels of detail (by email, WhatsApp, fax, handwritten, etc.). This results in errors or incomplete information. This in turn leads to a high clarification effort before the preparation of the offer can begin.

A standardized form was therefore required that asks for the urgently needed minimum information. This is the only way to check whether the request is technically feasible and how much it will cost. If the minimum information is not available, the engineer is forced to ask his sales colleague – who in turn has to obtain the required information from the customer. This enormous clarification effort represents a massive complication for PALFINGER.

Originally, PALFINGER had considered tackling this challenge with Excel lists. However, this was quickly discarded due to insufficient performance. Alternatively, editable PDFs would also have been conceivable. However, the problem here was that no photos or other media files could be added.

PALFINGER gained its first experience with the low-code platform Simplifier in an Industry 4.0 hackathon organized by Pioneers and startup 300 in May 2018. At that time, PALFINGER was one of four industrial companies to set a very individual requirement for the participating companies as part of the hackathon event and Simplifier was able to master the challenge with a small development team consisting of 3 employees with convincing results and prove the advantages of a low-code platform in the implementation of digital challenges.

In the case of the digital inquiry process, it was ultimately decided that an application that was both web and mobile-capable would be the best solution – Simplifier proved to be the most flexible platform for implementing the existing requirements.

The challenge of simplifying the inquiry processes for customers and providing them with complete data to PALFINGER was met by an app in the form of a digital form. This is used to generate a PDF from the information received. This is sent to the defined PLAFINGER mailbox via the Simplifier platform and attached to the quotation as a request.

This means that PALFINGER has all the information it needs to prepare a quotation in a centralized manner. In turn, the customer can use this form to configure what they want in a standardized way. Based on the information they provide, they then receive a customized quotation.

The aim is for all applications, including future ones, to be created and offered via one platform. It is also necessary to standardize the company’s own processes in the ERP system. Simplifier should ensure that app development is centralized and that the integration of necessary systems makes it possible for context-relevant data to be available for every other application without much additional effort.

The Simplifier difference

Simplifier has made it possible to map an important and time-critical process for PALFINGER, which was previously time-consuming in the collection of information, simply and including the connection of required systems on a 100% digital basis. The result of this first app alone was that a massive amount of time and effort could be saved when recording information and thus when preparing quotations. Thanks to the very simple operation of the app, the quality of both the inquiries from the dealers/customers and the individual quotations that PALFINGER can create based on them are much higher – and the response time is significantly shorter. Customers therefore quickly receive a quote that is tailored precisely to their needs.

Application development is also much faster with low-code. This in turn leads to significantly lower costs and a considerably faster roll-out.

In the current expansion stage, the offer data is stored in a database. This is available for the rest of the process. If required, this data can be processed later in other systems (e.g. in an order management tool). This represents the first step towards a solution that can be scaled up in the future – be it in the direction of an SAP system or a self-developed order management tool.

The app is currently bilingual (German and English). This is an absolute must for an international player like PALFINGER. This means that non-German-speaking customers can also order their desired configurations. This requires a prompt expansion of the application, which is also one of the advantages of a low-code platform.

In order to drive the digital transformation forward, PALFINGER is aiming to rely even more heavily on Simplifier.

A long-term goal is that in future it will also be possible to communicate with data between different systems and ultimately configure everything in the SAP system.

In order to take the company’s international approach even further, it is planned to offer other languages (e.g. Russian) in addition to German and English in the future.

The apps are currently only optimized for desktop. However, this will not be the case in the medium to long term. In terms of enterprise mobility, the company is also considering mapping the process on mobile devices. This would allow orders to be placed much more quickly. Thanks to its independence from operating systems and end devices, Simplifier has the ideal prerequisites for this.