ENTIRETEC on Siemens Xcelerator Marketplace
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Unlocking Round-the-Clock Smartness and Security
When Siemens automation experts advise a customer, they are often accompanied by colleagues from ENTIRETEC. ENTIRETEC designs and operates 24/7 cybersecure communications infrastructures – from Siemens, for example. Customers can make use of this offer via the Siemens Xcelerator platform.
After his time as an engineer and product manager at Siemens, Thomas Herrmann set up his own business, ENTIRETEC. There was just one room with a desk at the start. And quite a lot of unusual ideas. “I’m a technical nut,” admits the 50-year-old. That hasn’t done any harm. Today, Herrmann sits in the ENTIRETEC office building, with a view of Dresden from behind the large glass front. ENTIRETEC currently has 90 employees who look after customers all over the world. “We are a multinational miniature corporation,” says Herrmann. A miniature corporation with a particularly valuable wealth of experience in the field of operational technology (OT) and IT, specifically in setting up and operating communications infrastructures.
The worry-free package for the customer in focus: Martina Glänzer and Thomas Herrmann from ENTIRETEC.
Valuable and also visionary, since factories are being digitalized in the wake of Industry 4.0, with OT and IT merging, by connecting the operating level, for instance, to the company’s ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and office software. That provides many advantages, for example, for the efficiency of production or quality, and for the successful implementation of new business models. But there are also a number of disadvantages, for example, for cybersecurity, when older machines are suddenly connected to the Internet.
Time saver for the customer
Herrmann sees a huge need for advice among his customers. Intensive consultation is required before the ENTIRETEC crew plans the communications infrastructure of a factory and finally takes over operation with a round-the-clock service contract. “Our work is very consulting-intensive,” says Martina Glänzer, Head of Sales. She says that potential customers often have ideas about how they want to digitalize their production, but don’t really know how to implement them. To that end, the company has developed a solution template, a kind of construction kit for digitalizing the customers’ OT and their communications infrastructure. Glänzer promises that the template is based on best practices and is suitable for most customers, whether it’s for industry, hospitals, or the automotive sector. That saves customers time because they can build on ready-made scenarios. ENTIRETEC designs the solution on that basis together with Siemens, and implements it, develops an operating concept for in-house operation by the customer, or takes over the infrastructure in a 24x7 managed service, in other words, operates the solution for the customer.
No one else can do what Siemens and ENTIRETEC can do together.
This worked perfectly just recently for a major German manufacturer of medical technology. ENTIRETEC completely redesigned the OT infrastructure for one of its plants. That involved Siemens and ENTIRETEC carrying out an audit and assessing whether the business unit was ready for the IT requirements. The successful model is now being rolled out to the other plants with around 50 production lines. Martina Glänzer expects more: “Medical technology is just one of several of the customer’s business fields. The blueprint enables scaling, in other words, quick and effective adaptation to other business fields.”
ENTIRETEC recommends the Siemens product portfolio for networking the production facilities. It has nothing to do with nostalgia, but rather with healthy realism. “There is hardly a production plant that doesn’t use Siemens components,” says Herrmann. He says that Siemens has a very good understanding of customer needs, an extensive technical portfolio, in-depth knowledge of technical and regulatory standards, and, above all, a high level of acceptance in many industries worldwide.
In the modernly equipped testing laboratory, network professionals have the opportunity to simulate various operational scenarios for the customers.
It makes sense, he says, to base the solution template on Siemens’ automation technology. “On the other hand, there is also no production company that has everything from Siemens.” He says that even at smaller industrial companies, you can find machines that are in part 30 years old, from a dozen manufacturers, all of which offer their own management solutions – “a nightmare for the secure operation of the production environment.” The great strength of ENTIRETEC lies in bringing these many different solutions under one roof that is convenient, efficient, and also cybersecure.
ENTIRETEC is supported in that regard by Siemens Xcelerator, the digitalization platform from Siemens, on which the Dresden-based company is represented as a partner. Herrmann praises the Siemens Xcelerator as a catalyst for collaboration. That is necessary, he says, because merging OT and IT requires a great deal of expertise that a company doesn’t have on its own. “We advise the customer together, and develop the design. In addition, ENTIRETEC offers an operating concept in accordance with current cybersecurity regulations, and can also take over the operation 24/7 for the customer.” That was also the case with the project for the medical technology manufacturer After the rollout, the ENTIRETEC Operation Team took over operation.
The potential of Siemens Xcelerator is particularly evident in large projects. Partners can work together via the platform, for example, in complex tenders where different expertise is required for the different disciplines. And for potential customers, Siemens Xcelerator is often the first step, where they get ideas for digitalization projects and find contacts who already have practical experience – often at ENTIRETEC. For Thomas Herrmann and his team, the partnership on Siemens Xcelerator is second to none: “No one else can do what Siemens and ENTIRETEC can do together.
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