COSMO CONSULT receives innovation award for Cloud-based Industry 4.0 solution

Once again Europe's leading Microsoft Dynamics partner COSMO CONSULT with its solutions belongs to the most innovative companies in the IT industry: The COSMO CONSULT solution scenario Digital Factory 365 was selected among the best in the category cloud solutions by the Initiative Mittelstand in the competition INNOVATIONSPREIS-IT 2018. The award, which is one of the most important independent IT awards, honors forward-looking digital solutions that open up new applications and business opportunities for companies from all industrial sectors.

The IT INNOVATION AWARD, which has been awarded since 2006, is one of the most coveted awards for companies in the IT environment. Once a year, applicants from a wide variety of specialist fields who have developed an innovative solution meet with an independent panel of experts consisting of scientists, industry experts and journalists. The awards go to the best innovations in various categories - from enterprise resource planning (ERP), e-commerce and IT security to current cloud developments.

Digital networking of real objects 

For the third year in a row, the jury selected cc|digital factory 365 as a COSMO CONSULT solution from about 130 applicants in the cloud sector alone. The Industry 4.0 platform enables the entire value chain to be mapped digitally using intelligent Microsoft information technologies. Microsoft Azure-based cloud services and the use of modern IoT (Internet of Things) systems play a central role here: Real-time data of machines, components or tools are recorded by tags and sensors in order to compare them with planning data at ERP and MES level and to enable autonomous control of the objects. 

The cloud solution, developed in research cooperation with the Magdeburg Fraunhofer IFF and well-known industry partners - including Microsoft, Bosch, telent-euromicron, Dräger and Autodesk - uses the latest Augmented Reality (AR) technologies to connect the real world with the digital world. From customer enquiries to design, commercial and technical project management as well as object tracking through to invoicing and post-calculation, all processes are combined on a central platform consisting of standard Microsoft solutions and Microsoft-certified COSMO CONSULT special solutions.

New possibilities through cloud technologies 

cc|digital factory 365 is part of a comprehensive cloud program that Microsoft is also driving forward - most recently with the release of the fully cloud-based all-in-one enterprise solution  Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. It is no coincidence that the cloud is becoming increasingly interesting for companies: The external provision of computing capacity, storage space and software via the Internet significantly reduces the cost of implementing and maintaining your own IT. In addition, cloud services can be quickly and flexibly adapted to changing needs. According to the digital association bitkom, two thirds of all companies are already cloud users - and the trend is rising. 

"The cloud is the linchpin of digital change", says  Uwe Bergmann, CEO of the  COSMO CONSULT  Group. "Cloud topics such as big data, automation, mobility and artificial intelligence have enormous potential, which not only fundamentally changes jobs, but entire business models. According to Uwe Bergmann, the goal must be to profit from this development at the same time and to play a positive role in shaping it with a focus on the people in the companies. "We are therefore particularly pleased that the Innovation Award for cc|digital factory 365 also officially honored our development work and honored a solution that already enables industrial companies to use future-oriented cloud technologies today".