"At TTTECH Industrial we aim to deliver solutions that add real value. Because only when our customers succeed, we succeed. Together we build partnerships to understand their aspirations and goals."
Discover our most common Nerve use cases
What is remote service?
All service and maintenance work that is carried out on machines and production lines without the service technician being on site.
What is the challenge?
- Difficult to plan costs and duration of maintenance, especially at remote customer locations
- Software updates are time consuming, insecure and difficult to track
What are the benefits?
- Detect and resolve common errors remotely
- Consolidate engineering expertise and avoid excessive travel costs
- Simultaneously deploy software updates to installed machines via secure cloud connection
- Remotely diagnose and patch software issues
Remote access with Nerve:
- Remotely access your devices in your network using an integrated tunnel
- Directly display a remote desktop of your applications in a browser without the need for installing additional software
- Collect logs centrally for all your applications and devices
- Keep your edge software and applications up-to-date
What is condition monitoring?
Condition monitoring keeps track of key indicators for machine performance (vibration, temperature etc.) in order to identify any changes which may be indicative of a developing fault.
What is the challenge?
- Detect machine's performance changes before a failure occurs
- Errors are often sporadic and difficult to track
- Retrospectively identify the root cause of failure to prevent them
What are the benefits?
- Ensure maintenance visits are always on time and scheduling is optimal
- Increased machine availability through monitoring of key indicators and early fault detection
- Better and earlier error detection through trend data and data history
Condition monitoring with Nerve:
- Read sensor data via fieldbuses (PROFINET, EtherCAT) using the real-time Soft PLC module
- Read data from PLCs or other sources (S7, Modbus, OPC UA) using the integrated Data Gateway and store it in a local database
- Visualize the data in local or cloud-based dashboards and create alarms using rules
What is machine learning?
Machine learning algorithms build a model based on sample data, known as training data, in order to make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed to do so.
What is the challenge?
- Interrelationships of functional or behavioral changes in the machines are not recognized
- Model calculation only takes place in the cloud, but execution of the model must take place on the machine in a time-critical manner
What are the benefits?
- Data ownership and control, whether on-site or in the cloud
- Identification of and response to trends and patterns in machine behaviour
- Error reduction through optimization of processes and improved solution finding
Machine learning with Nerve:
- Use Nerve Data Services to collect live and training data
- Create and train your models using your preferred machine learning toolkit
- Deploy models and configurations and integrate them into a DevOps flow using the API
- Connect your trained models to live data using applications running on Nerve
- Visualize results in local or cloud-based dashboards
What is a digital twin?
A digital twin is a representation of a physical object, process or service. The twin can be a digital replica of an object in the physical world such as a CNC mill or a turbine. Nerve provides secure access to machine data which acts as the foundation for a digital twin.
What is the challenge?
- Monitoring the behavior of machines and their interactions is only possible in the real world
- Innovation cycles and improvements need time and a physical setup for evaluation
What are the benefits?
- Improved test and functional check on a digital twin
- Comparability of behaviors of machines operating in different locations
Digital Twin with Nerve:
- Securely collect data from the machine and model them in OPC UA for digital twin
- Read sensors using fieldbuses (Profinet, EtherCAT) using the integrated Soft PLC
- Use the integrated data services gateway to upload relevant data for the Digital Twin representation to cloud providers
What is brownfield digitalization?
Implementing digital technologies and services to existing industrial machinery and equipment to support more efficient operation, new services and compliance with current regulatory and cybersecurity standards such as the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) and NIS2.
What is the challenge?
- Software scalability: New digital services require real-time data processing and the ability to scale workloads as requirements grow. This demands future-proof computing platforms that can grow and adapt to changing demands.
- Hardware decoupling: System functionality is separated from physical hardware – this means that both hardware and software can be upgraded, replaced, or scaled as needed. This ensures systems are modular and flexible and thus easier to maintain and scale.
- Cybersecurity: The Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) places high demands on products with digital components, and companies need to ensure that these requirements are met for their digital offering.
- Lifecycle management: The CRA requires products to be secure throughout their entire lifecycle, which may last for 10 or even 20 years.
What are the benefits?
- Companies can enhance the functionality and extend the lifetime of their existing equipment – this is especially important for industrial environments where machines are often on the shop floor for a decade or more, and replacing them is costly.
- The market increasingly expects digital services. Companies not only need to provide customers with such services but can also make use of them to increase efficiency and lower costs, e.g., through remote maintenance and service.
- Securely encapsulate legacy equipment and connect it to the Internet and digital services without having to redesign the machinery itself.
Brownfield digitalization with Nerve:
- Nerve is hardware-independent, modular, and scalable.
- Nerve has received cybersecurity product certification according to IEC 62443-4-2 and thus provides a CRA-compliant platform for digital services.
- Nerve provides a secure basis for digital services and allows companies to focus on their own competences while extending their offering.
As regulations tighten and digital service demands grow, companies must adopt scalable architectures, secure update processes, and hardware‑agnostic strategies to safely extend the life of existing assets and unlock new value from long‑running machine fleets.
In this article, we introduce seven key challenges machine builders face in upgrading their machines for the digital age and how to mitigate them, creating sustainable service and retrofit revenue streams for themselves and their customers.
