Smart Company Project:
ZF Wind Power

ZF Wind Power is a leading global manufacturer of gearboxes for wind turbines. With a strong commitment to sustainability and innovation, the company designs and services unique gearbox solutions to ensure the highest quality at competitive costs. ZF Wind Power collaborates closely with partners to drive the future of energy forward, emphasizing digitalization and technological advancements in their operations.

What was needed?

ZF Wind Power required expertise to enhance the digitalization of their factory floor at their Lommel location. They needed a specialist to identify, develop, and implement Proof of Concepts (PoCs) and projects aimed at advancing their digitalization efforts and automating several business processes.

More specifically, ZF was looking for someone skilled in building IoT and Azure solutions. Later, this role gradually evolved into us leading the way toward no-code and low-code solutions ZF’s different departments could learn to work with. Since most companies already have Office 365 installed, it’s rewarding to get all of the benefits out of this software. The Microsoft Power Platform, with its Power Apps, provides an easy and fast way to create customized, powerful and future-proof solutions.

What Sirus provided

Sirus assigned Maarten De Bont as a consultant to ZF’s digitalization team. His role involved leveraging his technical expertise to develop new IoT solutions for optimizing business processes. This focus later shifted to conveying his knowledge about Power Apps and Power Automate since ZF wanted to stimulate employees interested to work with Power Apps (by means of their so-called Citizen Development Trajectory). Sirus Developer Maarten was appointed to lead the way.

Power Apps for different departments

Soon, Maarten developed some fully custom solutions. The first Power App was meant to digitize laboratory requests, significantly reducing paper-based processes. The success of this project motivated more employees to create Power Apps for their specific departments. Structures were set up within the company so employees could efficiently share their newly gained Power Apps knowledge, resulting in a more digital-minded workplace. Furthermore, some of these apps are implemented at other international ZF sites, such as India and China.

Camera monitoring the warehouse pallets

Additionally, a Raspberry Pi and camera system were developed to automatically photograph pallets in the warehouse to know their contents efficiently and quickly. The combination of photos and their corresponding barcodes are automatically uploaded to SharePoint. Subsequently, the custom developed Power App uses this data and integrates it with AI for object recognition, allowing operators to see the contents of each pallet and search for recognized objects efficiently. What previously took employees 3-4 minutes to check, can now be determined instantly, resulting in significant time and efficiency gains.

Maarten constantly keeps his eyes open for opportunities to build apps to further automate or optimize ZF’s business processes.

Power Platform training sessions

To efficiently and optimally convey his Power Platform knowledge, Maarten is currently organizing Beginner and Expert Sessions at ZF. Every employee interested in the software can tag along and learn all about this innovative platform and its wide range of possibilities.

Timeline of the project

Start date: September 2021

Current status: ongoing

Technicalities of the project

A variety of technologies were employed throughout multiple smaller projects:

What's next?

The project is set to continue with further development in Power Apps, including training sessions for beginners and creating demonstration apps. There is also an expansion plan to implement similar solutions in other ZF Wind Power locations, such as in India and China. Additionally, VR technology is being integrated for virtual walkthroughs of gearbox designs, providing an immersive experience for the engineering team.

What did our Sirus members think about the case?

"Working on the ZF Wind Power project has been incredibly rewarding. The rapid development and deployment capabilities of the Power Platform have allowed us to implement effective solutions quickly. The collaborative learning environment and leading the digitalization team have been particularly enjoyable aspects of this project."

Maarten De Bont, M365 developer at Sirus

Maarten De Bont Sirus Consultant

What did the customer think?

"For a Microsoft oriented company like ZF, the knowledge and skills of a partner like Sirus and Maarten are key in effectively capturing the benefits these tools have to offer."

Jan Van Nylen Head of Operational Excellence, ZF Wind Power