GERMANY – With ZIMBA, IMA Schelling brings the future into the present. In times of budget trimming and compressed schedules, the new IoT and service platform designed by IMA Schelling gives machine users fundamental insight and target-oriented recommendations for efficient operation of the production chain.

ZIMBA is tightly linked to the service organization that can detect failures and delays before they occur and take action proactively. That means: full transparency, better planning possibilities and calculable risk.

“Due to its open and flexible architecture, ZIMBA promises maximum customer benefit and simultaneously forms the basis for sustainable development of companies in a rapidly changing digital environment,” says Dietmar Nußbaumer, chief executive officer of IMA Schelling Digital.

In particular, the machine-oriented “Big Data Handling & Analytics“ sector stands out. Here the focus is not only on the data but also on the action and recommendations resulting from it which are given in an individualized and role-related manner – targeted at people working in different areas ranging from the management to the supply chain. This is an absolutely unique feature in machine and plant manufacturing. And so are the other core fields of ZIMBA, i.e. Instant Machine Reportings, Maintenance and Machine Learning.

All data, including an integrated know-how-database, operation manuals and reporting, is visualized in a clear cut manner and optimized for fast access. A new perfectly designed Hotline Ticketing with individualized rules activates the responsible internal and external persons and, if required, automatically sets up a connection to the IMA Schelling after-sales service.

Via ZIMBA, the machine data is accumulated in a central control room, with the result that the IMA Schelling service employees detect possible problems which gives them the ability to take action proactively. Malfunctions are identified, historical data is checked against the IMA Schelling data pool, and hence organisational waiting times are reduced. The consequence is a constantly increasing OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness). This procedure shall be more and more automated in the future so that the machines themselves detect possible machine faults and stoppages allowing automatic ordering of the applicable spare parts and wear parts in the Spare & Wear Parts Shop.

“ZIMBA shall secretly not only help stabilize and increase OEE and hence guarantee maximum customer benefit but also take the service organization of the IMA Schelling Group to a new dimension: completely in line with a dependable partnership”, says IMA chief executive officer Andreas Bischoff.