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- The IOTA Foundation has agreed to a close partnership with the German company Zühlke to promote machine-as-a-service solutions for the industry.
- The aim of the partnership is to promote IOTA’s Tangle technology in manufacturing and mechanical engineering.
In a blog post published yesterday, the IOTA Foundation stated that it has entered into a partnership with the German company Zühlke. With this new partnership, the IOTA Foundation aims to advance the application of IOTA Tangle technology in manufacturing and mechanical engineering. In order to make the leap into the economy, the company Zühlke, founded in 1968, will provide assistance. As a service provider for innovation projects, Zühlke has a high level of competence in business and technology solutions.
Together, Zühlke and the IOTA Foundation want to offer a “cost- and performance-efficient technology innovation that opens up new ways of accessing costly machines”. In a press release Jens von der Brelie, Director of the Solution Center Industrial and Consumer Solutions at Zühlke, explained (freely translated):
Our collaboration aims to integrate the IOTA Foundation’s Tangle technology platform into Zühlke projects to drive innovation. This enables progress such as the creation of micro-payment functions and opens the door to new models of machine utilization and marketing.
A focus of the cooperation will be in the area of machine-to-machine communication, especially in the areas of manufacturing and mechanical engineering. As explained in the press release, the purchase of production machines and other industrial equipment can be a major challenge for small and medium-sized companies due to the high purchase price. IOTA wants to solve this problem with an automated machine-as-a-service model.
Companies will be able to rent and lease machines and then pay per meter, per minute or by other criteria. Each step of the process will be encrypted and stored in IOTA’s Distributed Ledger. The costs will be settled from machine to machine in IOTA. In addition, the technology is also to be used in the large-scale industry for monitoring and controlling machine utilization.
Dominik Schiener, co-founder and co-chair of the IOTA Foundation, explained the model as follows (freely translated):
For operators of such machines, this innovation can also open up new revenue opportunities by allowing them to ‘rent’ their equipment to other companies when not in use. For other companies, on the other hand, pay-per-use innovation is the only way to enable access to such cost-intensive machines.
The focus is on German mechanical engineering and plant construction
As Jens von der Brelie explained, Zühlke sees great potential for its customers in IOTA’s Machine-as-a-Service model, as Dominik Schiener also confirmed (freely translated):
The machine and plant engineering industry already sees the potential behind the integration into the IoT. Using the Tangle in this context brings the concept of Machinery-as-a-Service much closer to practical implementation – it becomes accessible and affordable.
Due to the potential, both companies are striving to advance the new business models, whereby the focus will initially be on German mechanical and plant engineering. Zühlke has more branches in Germany than in any other country. Furthermore, the manufacturing industry is the largest industry in Germany and at the same time the third largest exporter of industrial goods worldwide.
In the long term, however, Zühlke and the IOTA Foundation also want to realize projects for the Asian and British markets. Zühlke has further branches in Great Britain, Austria, Serbia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bulgaria and Switzerland.
As CNF reported, IOTA announced a cooperation with the Linux Foundation about a week ago in order to improve interoperability with the LF Edge Framework and simplify integration for companies. Perhaps due to the positive news, the IOTA price has shown a slight upward trend over the past weeks. Last week the IOTA price rose by 5%, over the last month by 12%. Currently, the IOTA price is around USD 0.2721 (at the time of writing).
