At a glance
Diehl Metering develops and produces smart metering solutions for water and energy networks. The company was an industrial partner in the BMBF research consortium agileASSEMBLY (2023–2026). The goal was more flexible staffing with IT-supported solutions that employees use themselves. As software partner, Hawk contributed its planning platform to the consortium.
Starting point
Diehl Metering develops and produces smart metering solutions. The company helps utilities, municipalities and industries operate their water and energy networks more efficiently. Diehl Metering is part of the family-owned Diehl Group.
In manufacturing companies, staffing has to match fluctuating demand. At the same time, employees’ wishes should be taken into account. This question was at the heart of the use case.
Goal in the project
Diehl Metering was an industrial partner in the BMBF research consortium agileASSEMBLY from 2023 to 2026. The project set out to make staffing more flexible. IT-supported solutions that employees use themselves were planned for this purpose. Diehl Metering was aiming for sustainable and flexible staff planning with the help of intelligent systems.
Hawk’s contribution
Hawk was a software partner in the consortium and contributed its planning platform, then called getaiPlan and now Hawk IVO Plan. Together with Diehl Metering and the research partners, we worked on demand-driven, AI-supported shift planning. It is intended to adapt staff capacities flexibly to fluctuations and to take employees’ needs into account just as much as the requirements of production.
Result
agileASSEMBLY publishes the consortium’s results on the project website, including the collection of methods “Wandlungsassistent”. For Hawk, the collaboration provided insights into how employees’ wishes and the requirements of production come together in shift planning. Today, Hawk IVO Plan involves employees through an app in which they see their shift schedule, submit absence requests and swap shifts.
What we learned from the project as a whole is described in the article on the agileASSEMBLY research consortium. A second industrial partner in the consortium was IMS Gear, with which Hawk tested a digital planning board in assembly.