New version of the decision support system accelerates Customer service

 

Karlsruhe, December 18, 2007 – ontoprise GmbH announced today, that KUKA, the world-leading manufacturer of PC-based industry robots, rolls out KUKA.XPERT Plus to 250 service technicians in more than 20 subsidiaries in Europe, America and Asia. KUKA.XPERT Plus is an enhanced version of ontoprise’s SemanticGuide, which has been successfully used by KUKA since 2005. The new version 2.0 supports the efficiency and the quality-of-work of the service technicians on-site by use of a easier but more powerful knowledge acquisition approach and an updated portal concept with improved synchronisation mechanisms. It is a browser based, multilingual offline version of the ontoprise made system.

 

Furthermore security improvements have been implemented trough the system’s ability to deactivate itself upon loss or theft of the notebook.

 

The multilingual KUKA.XPERT Plus offers a quick and complete overview on all relevant information, which can be easily refined to better match the current requests by use of intelligent filters. Included information is the company’s service know-how – captured in an ontology-based knowledge model - as well as documents from various sources like the integrated product documentation.

 

Technological fundament of the system is a semantic approach for developing a complex knowledge base and a semantic search algorithm inside distributed data sources. An ontology relates information from these sources by means of rules and supports the problem solving process for service engineers. By this the knowledge base integrates the components configuration from SAP, the technical documentation from a content management system, problem-solution cases from earlier requests and information about defects from the development department. An integrated feedback function helps to continuously improve the content of the system.

 

Hans-Peter Schnurr, managing director of ontoprise, says: "KUKA’s world-wide roll out proves the success of ontoprise’s solution so far and underlines at the same time the strategic aspect of the Guide System for KUKA’s service organization".

 

Christian Jarc, project manager of KUKA Roboter GmbH says: "With KUKA.XPERT Plus our service engineers will find answers and solutions faster and more efficient. For us this means optimized problem solving and higher availability of our robots at our customer’s production facilities."

 

 

About Kuka

KUKA Robotics Corporation, with its parent company KUKA Roboter GmbH, Augsburg, Germany, is one of the world's leading manufacturers of industrial robots, with an annual production volume approaching 10,000 units, and an installed base of over 80,000 units. The company’s 5 and 6 axis robots range from 3kg to 1000kg payloads, and 635mm to 3700mm reach, all controlled from a common PC based controller platform. KUKA robots are utilized in a diverse range of industries including the appliance, automotive, aerospace, consumer goods, logistics, food, pharmaceutical, medical, foundry and plastics industries and in multiple applications including material handling, machine loading, assembly, packaging, palletizing, welding, bending, joining, and surface finishing.

www.kukarobotics.com