DigitalituM Podcast Episode 7 - LIVE from IMTS with Lukas Dieterle - ERO - US market entry - digitalization

Summary

In this episode of the #DigitalituMPodcast, Markus Rimmele interviews Lukas Dieterle, CEO of ERO Fuehrungen, about the company's history, its expansion into the US market, and the importance of digital transformation in manufacturing. They discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by the US market, insights from the IMTS 2024 trade show, and the role of AI and data in modern manufacturing processes.

Links:
ERO Fuehrungen Germany: https://ero-fuehrungen.de/en/

Authorized US distributor: Mark Eferdinger with Tailor3D https://www.tailor3d.us/category/all-products



Takeaways

Eroführung specializes in linear technology and customized solutions.
The US market presents unique challenges and opportunities for Eroführung.
Good service and understanding of local markets are crucial for success.
Digitalization is transforming manufacturing processes significantly.
AI and robotics are becoming essential in addressing labor shortages.
Communication and change management are key in digital transformation.
Manufacturing offers diverse opportunities that are often overlooked by youth.
Customized solutions require a deep understanding of client needs.
Trade shows like IMTS provide valuable insights into industry trends.
The future of manufacturing will balance technology and human interaction.


Sound Bites

"We want to talk a little bit about you."
"The US market is very interesting in manufacturing."
"We have to automate."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Eroführung and Its Products
02:56 Market Expansion and Entry into the US
05:57 Challenges and Strategies in the US Market
09:11 Insights from IMTS 2024
12:07 The Role of Robotics and Automation
14:51 Digitalization in Manufacturing
20:02 Navigating Change Management in Digital Transformation
23:47 The Future of AI and Human Interaction

Stay tuned for more inspiring conversations about manufacturing and digital transformation. Also, remember to follow and subscribe to the DigitalituM Podcast for exclusive insights from industry leaders and innovators.

We appreciate your likes and comments. If you feel you can add value to this podcast series and want to be our guest, send an email to Sales@DigitalituM.com

Transcript

Markus Rimmele (00:00)
Good morning, everyone. This is Markus Rimmele with the #DigitalituMPodcast podcast, and I'm here at the IMTS 2024 in the German Pavilion in the ERO Fuehrungen booth together with Lukas Dieterle. How are you this morning? I'm fine. Thanks. It's great to be here. Thank you, Markus. Thanks for having us here. We want to talk a little bit about you, of course, Lukas, your company, ERO Fuehrungen

your fantastic products, market entry into the US and of course the headline of this digitalization podcast, manufacturing at the intersection of digitalization and what it's in for you. So tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah. So I'm Lucas Dieterle I'm CEO and owner of Aeroführungen. It's a family owned company

middle -sized company. We are now in third generation and on the market since 63 years. That's some time. Yeah, that's a lot of time. yeah, that's also the thing. We developed our market and our customers in everything around linear technology. So we are starting with linear guide rails. So from the components till...

are to the smaller, easier systems, manual linear technology to complete linear portals, linear robots and everything around linear technology. a wide range of standard products, but also a wide range of combination possibilities, configuration possibilities and also customized solutions for our customers in the manufacturing market, tooling machines and automation of course.

Give us an example of where ERO products are used in a specific use case or example. So principally it's all markets and machines and applications where there's linear movement. you have a specific example? For example in tooling machines, grinding machines, milling machines, so XY tables, Z -axis, whatsoever, or in measurement machines.

When it comes to high precision or if you need fast linear movements or combination of different linear movements or just the adjustment. So everywhere where it has to be precise or some other special specifications. And all your products are designed, engineered and manufactured in your facility in the Black Forest in southwest Germany, right?

Yeah, right. So our team of now 63 employees, they are from research development to really grinding, milling, everything, also assembly and so on. Everything is under one roof. And that's also a reason why we are flexible. And how long are you with the company already? So I'm with the company as a kind of my whole life because it's a family-owned business.

But I came back after several stations at different companies in January 2017. OK, so that's also quite some time. And what did you actually study? What area and what university? Yeah, I'm a business engineer. I did my bachelor's degree in a dual system.

And after that I did my Masters of Engineering in Constance. On the lake of Constance. All right. Beautiful place. Very good.

So you're also responsible for the market expansion and you plan to enter now the US market. Why the US market? Yeah, of course the US market is very interesting in manufacturing, in automation, in machining, so everything. And we are already in the US market as we have some really big customers. They have like customers and suppliers here.

and they say you have to use ERO products. And so we have a couple of customers here, so since a long time, but now we want to improve our service. And of course we want also new customers here because we know our products are special and really good for many applications. And there are not many companies who can provide the same service in customized solution as in

like not even customized but with a special configuration you are in standard but for the customer it's customized solutions. There are not many competitors in that area and that's very interesting for us and also for new customers here in the US. And with customized solutions you mean the understanding of the specific challenges what a client has and then adapt this challenges.

to a product of you and make it special for that particular application. Right. For example, if you, Markus, want to develop a new grinding machine, you tell us, OK, I have this knowledge in the application, like in how to grind, and I need an XY table with this and that specification.

It must be very precise. I need that stroke. I need this everything and I don't have too much space. And I need this like also this motorization, this thing and so on. And then you're like don't need as much time as you would need if you would develop it yourself. And you don't have probably not the experts in this area. So you can use our experts to get the product you exactly need.

So the client needs to share their specific specifications, what they have in terms of precision, weight, dimensions, movement, inertia and all of that. And with this data, you are able to build a custom solution for that application. Right. Either we choose the correct standard solution or if there is not a specific standard solution, we develop the correct customized one.

That's pretty interesting. But therefore, specifically for the US market, you need somebody who first of all understands the market, speaks the language, but also has that engineering background of understanding what you're talking about. Who is your local partner here? So that's right, Markus. have... So first thing is you need someone here. That's right. And the other thing is...

It's a way different market. So the US market is very, very different. especially in Germany, are engineers. are very detailed, loving. And here in the US, they are more like in this bigger picture. That's very good for us because we are providing the big picture. But you need someone who understands the American market. And we are really happy.

that we found Mark Eferdinger from Taylor3D. You see it right there? And he is helping us to come as a distributor, come into that market, being the first level support and bring the information to the customers and also have the ability to give a good service. Because that's the thing, not only in the US, a good service is always important. That's right.

to have that counterpart in the target market who speaks the language, understands the culture, understands the technology, has work experience in that field, and can also kind of translate between the American engineering and the German engineering is pretty important. Otherwise, and we saw many cases in the past, things go wrong.

and a market expansion doesn't really work well because things like this are not taken care of. there are many examples that didn't work, but there are also many that did work and it needs time of course and it needs service. So that's the two most important things.

You're now the second time here on IMTS. On IMTS 2022 you had already a booth. Now you're here the second time. Today is day three. What's your feedback so far about the biggest, largest and longest industrial trade show in the North American market? Yeah, it's a great show. So everyone is here who has something to do with manufacturing in the U .S.

And it's really great discussions here. It's always a little bit difficult because there are not that many mid -sized companies who are really experts in a wide range of linear technology things. So we have to explain a lot what we are doing. But it's great to surprise the customers so that they think, what? company of 60 people can provide all of this?

And this is great to let them see. There's a one -stop shop, uncomplicated, no big company, no bureaucracy and so on. And that's cool. That's really good here. Have you had a chance to walk the show and see all the different halls and a bunch of different manufacturers from components to robots to equipment to tool machines to all and everything?

Yeah, I had the chance to not all of the Holt because that's really a big task to see all of it. it was, I was so the tooling machine, so we have many customers here. So here also many German or European companies. So it's a meet and greet from the whole world kind of. And no, it's great. So it's also interesting to see like two years ago that

differences or the new technology, what can happen in just two years? What do you see there specifically in differences or transformation between 2022 and 2024? So I think especially in the robotics thing, there's so kind of every day there is some new ideas, some new products and in two years, in the last two years in robotics, there was a lot automation with robotics.

For us pretty good is that like these six axis robot arms are well known now, but in many cases they are too slow or too not precise enough or whatsoever. And with our linear axis and so on, we can provide the correct solution. So they kind of tried the robot arm and now they could find something better. the good thing is to see what

not only the new technologies but also the new needs the market has. Why do you think there are now more robotics and automation on the market? What is the reason behind that all in your point of view? Yeah, of course. The Americans have the same thing as the Europeans. We have high labor costs and we have not that many people.

We do not find many people to work in manufacturing, so we have to automate. It's the whole topic about labor shortage and then in addition to that the skills gap. That the older people in the industry are already retired or soon to be retired and unfortunately quantity wise.

from the young generation, not enough people choose a profession in the manufacturing industry, which is on one side a great industry as we both work in it. That's right. But I see other industries specifically for the use are more attractive than ours. But that's also the reason why we the manufacturers need to talk about how cool manufacturing is.

in order to attract these young people to get into this profession as within manufacturing you can do so many different things in my point of view. How do you see that? Yeah, manufacturing is great. There are so many possibilities and they are not known. So there are so many niches also where you can like change the world and every day there's a new niche coming up and just to work in it and solve problems.

I think many young people do not see how great it is to solve these problems or they do not see how these problems are solved because they don't have any connection. And it's great that you are doing this podcast to make them see that there are so many possibilities.

Let's hop a little bit more on this whole topic of digitalization. As you know, with Digitalitum, we help manufacturers on their digitalization journey with a lot of different tools using technologies like immersive augmented reality, virtual reality, IoT, even AI and others in your specific manufacturing processes in your factory in the Black Forest.

What are the challenges you have and what of the new things under the umbrella of digital things have you already done, tried, do you have any examples on that? Yeah, so in our production we had a very very fast development of digitalization in the last years. So every system from

So research data, development, new products, all the data are not on paper anymore. And not in Excel sheets anymore? Yeah. And we have also connected the databases. from thinking about a new product to have the correct materials in your Materials, specifications. Right. And then to the machine, what do we have to manufacture then?

and then what parts are... Which is production planning. Right, production planning is a big thing. And then also at the machine. So you get the correct program to like mill the parts as you need. How about the traceability of the parts through the production process? Do you guys do that as well? And do you guys have a system for that? Yeah, so we have it because it's not because of

only because of the customer needs. It's also because we do a lot of customized stuff. So you have always to bring the correct parts together. Exactly. There are many machines and there many parts around. And after it in assembly, you should have all the correct parts. You have to have the right parts for the right assembly for the right customer. At the right time. At the right time and not mix that in.

in some variation up otherwise it's a big mess and the customer is not happy. Right, that's it. And another example, so one step before especially if you look at like our standard products. we can this, for example this adjustment slide, this easy manual adjustment slide is a standard product but only with configuration you have 1 .4 billion configuration possibilities.

And of course that's a lot. And there you need like digital help with online configurator. And so starting from the sales with an online configurator on a website and then kind of bringing that information into the sales process and then going from there in the actual production process telling the individual manufacturing machines.

what program they need to run, what material to use in order to make the specific parts. Right. And then also what to order and then what to assemble. terms of raw material coming in, all the different types of metals and sizes and shapes. Yeah. And then also what weight does it have for shipping? The traceability through the production and then from the shipping part, making sure that the right package goes to the right client.

Do you guys do anything in terms of data capturing visualization of your production equipment and then do use cases in predictive maintenance or any of these fancy IoT topics already? Yeah, we do. So in our manufacturing, these informations are very important, but we see always the development of this market with our products because we are in

automation, are inside the machines and around the machines and so we need to have all the different possibilities to make this predictive maintenance. Digital twin is a huge topic so in combination of many times and there is but this is the thing we are developing a lot at the moment this is mechatronics so we started with this like just mechanic parts.

and now we are a mechatronics company. And what are the challenges you face as a company in leadership and all the different departments in adapting through that digital transformation journey, which is at the end of the day a lot of change management because you have to do things in a different way as you did before. Your maybe older employees are still used to...

use a lot of paper and fill in data in Excel sheets and all of that and now all of a sudden they have to do it in a different way. Can you talk about the challenges there? Yeah, there are many challenges and also in every department. That's a big thing. So principally there are three things you have to do. First is good communication.

so that everyone knows what to do and where to go and why. Second is set the right targets. So you really need to have the right targets for everyone. And third is good communication. You have to communicate the targets and so on. So you see communication is important. Yes. so digitalization is not an engineering topic, what a lot of think that

The IT department is supposed to do that. It actually involves every department in a company and at the end of the day it's a lot of communication and change management in order to make it successful. Right and not only in manufacturing, in every business. So I don't know any business that's working without digitalization also for the future. Yeah it's a necessary thing to do as

in my point of view it brings a lot of advantages. It brings efficiency, better, faster and all of that. But it also helps to provide more value to a client for example. And also, and that's the reason why everything is getting faster. So you also have to save your knowledge and you need to save your knowledge because otherwise it doesn't work. But also in the past it was a problem to save that knowledge.

So that was because you had to like getting again the same knowledge and so the development was slow. But now you have to. It doesn't work if you do not save the knowledge and now you can grow very fast because you have a basic knowledge and then you're always developing something more. Yeah and if you have the know -how in some type of database

you can actually use that knowledge and use it. And with all the different tools under the umbrella of artificial intelligence, it even works therefore better, faster, and things are possible which, for example, two years ago are not, were not possible. two years ago there was no JetGPT yet. And now we cannot live it without it anymore. Are you a user of JetGPT?

Yeah, sure. What are your tasks? You do that with that AI system? I would say that half of the things I googled in the past, now I ask the chat GPT. So, it's a daily business. As you get and you do it because you have the feeling you get a better...

quality answer in a kind of compact way instead of getting a list of 20 pages where you have to go and check which is again time to use. Right, time is the main topic. Yeah. Of course. It's not for every work but to get an overview that's the best thing you can make. Yeah. Yeah. It's just a new tool we added.

into all our toolboxes and everybody is exploring what's in for them. Yeah, and that's also the thing in the normal work you're doing not even with, it doesn't even have to be AI something, but if you have a good database, as we talked before, you can save time or so many time in so many departments because these kind of monkey work you don't have to do anymore.

Plus using data helps you to make database decisions versus in the past not having the data or not having access to the data and its visualization let us do a lot of gut feeling decisions which we did with the experience we had. But sometimes we did therefore the wrong decisions because our feelings tell we should do it this way but if we would have

good data to it we would know that we have to actually do that way. We have a similar feeling. That's right. So for saving time and getting a better decision basis but it's important also to use your non -artificial intelligence. that's a big point. You can get big trouble if you just trust the AI.

I agree on that. you should not trust only AI and do everything what AI does. I just see it as an additional tool to help you in your decision making process. That's totally right. Very good. Looking into the future, where do you think this all goes? yeah, that's a big question.

Yeah, it will. So in many cases, AI, for example, has a big influence on how the things change. But there will be other technologies or, as we said in the beginning, other niches where we will use it and so on. it will get even more fast. But the things who worked like forever, they will still work. So it's still important to have.

contact to each other so that we meet on trade shows and so on. So that all humans won't be automated that fast. there are always new technologies. or we have to bring the new solutions. So AI is just working with old information for the really, really new information. We need still our brains. And that's a big thing.

And this will be very important in the future also with relationships and just doing a favor. are so the world isn't completely automatic. So at the moment, yeah. And I think it will never be as we humans need interaction and all these digital things just help us to get better, faster, more efficient and all of that. I see it as an added value.

and not as a real danger in my point of view. So I'm looking forward to the future. Right, yeah, me too. So we always have to keep an eye on the digit, let the digitalization work for us, not let us work for the digitalization. That is actually a good final word. Thank you, Lukas, for doing this here from the ERO booth at the German Pavilion at IMTS 2024.

Thank you, Markus. Thank you for your podcast. You're welcome.