toii® Expert Ilse Henne - Chief Transformation Officer

As a materials distributor and service provider, why is thyssenkrupp Materials Services now focusing on digital products for its customers?

As Materials Services, we believe, that in the future bits will replace tons. The transparency and supply chain will increase because of the possibilities of digitalization. With this increasing transparency, there are new opportunities for us to develop new business models.

What exactly does thyssenkrupp Materials Services's portfolio offer in terms of digitization for customers in the manufacturing industry?

As part of our traditional business, we already have many solutions for our customers in the manufacturing industry that we offer close to our products. In recent years, we have also launched a few companies that provide digital supply chain solutions for our customers. In the UK, there is the steelbuy brokerage platform, the AI-powered optimization tool pacemaker and toii®, an IoT platform developed as part of the steel service center business that leads to production improvement. We also have a third platform in our portfolio called Pelagus. This is a platform for additive manufacturing.

Why does thyssenkrupp Materials Services also offer digitization services such as toii® to external competitors?

The question is often risen to us why we want to offer our product, which we develop for internal optimization, to external customers. We believe in the strength of our product toii® and that the supply chain we are working on will be digitized. We wish to use our own experience to participate in the value creation that comes from digitizing supply chain, production processes and shop floor actions.

Which potential can be unlocked for manufacturing companies through digitization?

Digitization allows manufacturing companies to increase efficiency and productivity, to make processes more stable and to reduce of course non conformity costs.

Why is digitization an important topic in the steel industry and will also stay crucial in the future?

Digitization is an important topic for all industries. In the steel industry, digitization can help us in the acceleration towards a more sustainable world. Through digitization, we can measure and reduce emissions as well as the use of resources and materials in our processes and productions.

How will thyssenkrupp Materials Services with toii® contribute to digitalization in the future?

With toii® we have a mature IoT solution that we have developed and that we use widely in our internal organization. But we have also brought it to market, in Europe and in the US. The contribution of toii® Materials Services will be its ability to scale its offering: internally, but specifically externally in the steel service market and beyond.

Are further smart services planned?

Our innovation pipeline is full of new ideas, mockups and minimal viable products. All of them being developed with our current and future customers. We are sure that these will also lead to new solutions, which we can offer.