E-Bike Online platform supports maintenance

With the technical possibilities of Internet of Things and Cloud, complex and innovative solutions can be realized. Data and information about a physical product are thus available in all phases of the lifecycle.

Challenges

With the boom of "e-bikes" or "pedelecs", the bicycle suddenly develops from a simple everyday device that can be understood and repaired by everyone into a complex electronic article. Accordingly, the cyclist usage behaviour, the maintenance requirements, and the demands on workshops and technology changes.

For manufacturers, it is not only a matter of networking (creating an e-bike online platform) the increasing number of components on the bike, but also finding out about the usage patterns and technical problems in everyday life in order to implement corresponding improvements. The premise is that the customer simply wants to ride his bike.

Procedure

A classic CAN-Bus is used to network the components on the e-bike. No hurdle for the customer and parts from a well-known automotive supplier. However, the heterogeneous environment of bicycle dealers and workshops prompted the customer to develop a new maintenance management concept. The maintenance information and updates for the bike should be accessible without major contractual and technical hurdles. At the same time, the manufacturer can use stored error logs to work on specific improvements and increase customer benefit.

In addition to the portal, SWMS developed the interface to the CAN-Bus, which can be freely downloaded by users and maintenance shops after registration.

Results

With the online portal, the manufacturer is not only up to date, it is also readily prepared for future upcoming developments. The Microsoft Azure Cloud not only guarantees the highest availability and data security, it also saves the manufacturer the purchase of expensive hardware and thus administration expenses. The scalability also benefited the cost aspect - the capacity of the Azure Cloud grows with the required performance.

"We gladly accepted the challenge of networking a physical product with individual components and depicting it as a "digital twin" in the cloud. We have thus developed a modern and future-proof solution for our customer", Ingo Schlalos, Project Manager SWMS.

Project Details

 Marquardt GmbH
 Rietheim-Weilheim
 http://marquardt-ebike.com