Participating
Members
About the
implementation
GEBHARDT’s fully automated warehouse architecture was enriched through deep insights from Dunkermotoren and their components for intralogistics. Focusing on predictive maintenance is a crucial step of supply chains, the project raised high interest in other partners to join forces in this OI4 Alliance collab.
Driving Industry 4.0 Innovation in Intralogistics
In just under three months, GEBHARDT Intralogistics Group and Dunkermotoren successfully implemented a groundbreaking Industry 4.0 project at GEBHARDT’s fully operational main warehouse. This achievement earned them the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance’s Implementation Award.
The project focuses on seamless connectivity, predictive maintenance, and standardized data integration, ensuring smooth warehouse operations while reducing downtime risks. By integrating the GEBHARDT Galileo IoT® platform, Dunkermotoren’s cloud infrastructure, and Asset Administration Shell (AAS) standards, the team has created a future-proof, scalable intralogistics platform.
This initiative goes beyond a single implementation—new partners are continuously joining to expand capabilities and drive best practices for Industry 4.0 across companies. The project serves as a reference facility for alliance members, offering an almost out-of-the-box, standardized solution for businesses looking to optimize their warehouse operations.
With contributions from leading technology partners like Captron, Bizerba, ifm, Pepperl+Fuchs, Phoenix Contact, Sick, and SAP, the project is evolving into a fully integrated smart intralogistics ecosystem—setting new benchmarks for efficiency, interoperability, and innovation in the industry.
Building
Blocks
Setup
The project was carried out in GEBHARDT’s fully functional warehouse in Sinsheim. The warehouse containers (GEBHARDT Cheetah® operating devices for containers and shelves as well as GEBHARDT shuttles of the StoreBiter® type) run on fully automated conveyor belts and are set in motion by Dunker motors (type BG66 and BG75 Dunkermotors).
Implementation Goals
The goal was to access the data of the Dunker motors and feed the data into the Galileo IoT® Platform – in order to calculate downtimes and predict maintenance. For this purpose, the Asset Administration Shell was used, which is standard in the OI4 Alliance. It enables an administrative superstructure in the cloud architecture and the smooth exchange and flow of data.
Maintenance
By mapping the container and motor data as digital twins in GEBHARDT’s virtual ecosystem (GEBHARDT Galileo IoT® Platform), users were able to tap into when maintenance and spare parts were needed – in real time. All data could also be fed and assessed by Dunkermotor’s cloud infrastructure. This enables full use in the warehouse and increases the efficiency of intralogistics.
Operation
The project achieved operational successes in the direct usability, onboarding of new assets, monitoring of states and integration into the enterprise logic. All available data could be designed and implemented in partnership and with rapid market readiness thanks to the guidelines and architecture of the OI4 Alliance. The result: an intralogistics system that promises new transparency and additional productivity increases for operators through standardized signal flow.
At Hannover Messe, we showed an example of how we will access one of our motors in one of the GEBHARDT shuttles live via a tablet in the GEBHARDT warehouse. We can also show the status data visually in a standardised way, i.e. not in the form of a demo programmed for trade fair purposes that only works in a specific configuration. At GEBHARDT, the visualisation of the standardised status data provided via the AAS is carried out directly in Galileo® IoT without having to integrate separate dashboards for example.