The Digital Krones Academy – knowledge on tap

The internet has got us used to informational luxury, to finding the right answer to well-nigh every technical questions (no matter how specific) within a few seconds. If you want to know how to reset the time on your microwave, how to change a tyre on your car, or how to remedy a malfunction on your PC, you simply watch a short video on the net, which takes you step by step through the right procedure. Leafing through a manual and solving the same problem by studying a text and illustrations, by contrast, comes across as anachronistic.

This is why Dr. Jörg Puma, Director of the Krones Academy, and his people are devoting keen attention to the question of how in future they will be supplying users of Krones’ technology with information. “In our training courses, we have long since replaced frontal teaching and document reading by interactive, realistic methods of instruction,” explains Dr. Puma, “what we still need to put in place is the right ways and means for supporting our target group with situational relevance at their workplaces as well.”

As a first important step in this direction, the team has set up the Digital Krones Academy: through a locally installed terminal, it makes operating manuals and individually created training documents available directly in the line. The information is prepared in multi-medial form, and can be retrieved over a WLAN even on mobile terminals. The question of how particular operator routines and maintenance jobs are performed correctly can thus be answered directly on the spot concerned using an instructional video. The production staff therefore have a powerful tool available with which they can respond quickly and effectively to highly disparate situations in the line. But for Dr. Puma, this does not yet go far enough: “My goal is to supply our clients’ staff in real time with precisely the information they need at this particular moment. By using an app to network them with trainers, for instance, who provide live assistance round the clock while also demonstrating manipulations and work routines at the machine concerned.”