The Hamlin automation specialist Lenze is pooling and expanding its activities in digital solutions and technology innovations in Bremen. With the official opening of the digital innovation lab DOCK ONE on the premises of the subsidiary encoway GmbH on May 8th, the Lenze Group is continuing on its course for growth. In addition to Martin Günthner, Senator for Economics, Employment and Ports, the guests at the event also included the Chancellor of the University of Bremen, Dr Martin Mehrtens, and Frank Maier, a member of the Executive Board of Lenze SE.

In his speech Bremen’s economics senator emphasised the positive effects of this commitment to the IT location Bremen. “The University and the entire economic location need strong corporate partners that successfully position themselves on the market in the global growth environment of Industry 4.0. With DOCK ONE, Lenze is coming alongside with the strengths of our location and is contributing to the further development of Bremen as an ambitious IT location.” This opinion is shared by Maier, who justified the decision of the Group of Companies on Bremen with its good university infrastructure. “As companies we need well-educated specialists and graduates, of course. Students of Computer Science or Production Technology in particular find attractive jobs due to the close dovetailing between business and research,” he explained.  

The Executive Board of encoway is convinced of the advantages of the location. After all, the subsidiary of the Lenze Group was founded as a start-up here 18 years ago. The IT experts distribute software for product configuration, price calculation and quote generation – the process is called Configure Price Quote (CPQ). The fact that the Group benefits from the dynamic climate in and around the Technology Park Bremen is shown by the location of another subsidiary there: logicline GmbH, a specialist in Cloud applications, digital platforms and mobile apps has been represented with its own office in the Hanseatic city since the beginning of this year. The Lenze Group currently employs over 200 people at the Bremen location and assumes this figure will rise by a further 40 employees in the next twelve months. 
The new digital innovation lab provides the Lenze Group with internal development work. Added to this are joint projects with customers, partners and research institutions. DOCK ONE acts as a think tank with the aim of successfully implementing digitisation ideas for Industry 4.0 projects and digital business models and products. In order to promote new ideas and solutions, a creative ambience has been created. Teams can act freely and flexibly outside their usual workplaces in the light-flooded lounge, closely following the example of start-ups. “Against the background of rapidly progressing digitisation in industry we need unconventional thinking spaces where prototypes can emerge at high speed and where new ideas and trends can be tested,” explains Maier. 

At the opening, guests were able to get a picture of the first projects bearing the stamp DOCK ONE. For example, completely new perspectives are opened up with the help of Virtual Reality goggles, when configuring and developing products is concerned. Another exhibit relates to the interface between man and machine. The verbal request “Hi Alexa, how’s the engine?” could soon be reality in many fields. Participants in the work area Ideation, Design Thinking & Co. experienced just how creative technologies can be used to develop new business models. Some results from the first Bremen Industry 4.0 Hackathon were also presented. The term Hackathon, coined in Canada and the USA, describes events where problem solutions are developed in the shortest time. In February 2018, encoway offered 80 students, software developers, designers and creatives from science and practice a platform to solve industrial tasks within 48 hours. Another Hackathon is taking place from 12 to 14 October 2018.

More about DOCK ONE – The Digital Innovation Lab on www.dock.one

More about the Hackathon Bremen on www.hackathon-bremen.de