Can traditional companies improve or even reinvent themselves in an increasingly digital world? In order to answer this question positively, the KI NRW Future Center organized a workshop in June 2023 with the topic “My digital business model” for managing directors of Risse + Wilke Kaltband GmbH & Co. KG from Iserlohn, Buckau-Wolf GmbH from Grevenbroich and Heismann Drehtechnik GmbH from Velbert. In addition to an introductory presentation on the topic of digitalization, individual strategies for the respective business model were developed for all three companies, using the Business Model Canvas.
(Quelle:) Alexander Osterwalder: The Business Model Ontology, Lausanne 2004
Developed by Alexander Osterwalder in 2004 Business Model Canvas looks at a company’s business model from different perspectives and focuses in particular on customers and their benefits. What customer benefits lie behind the services or products offered by the company?
The canvas is used to document and analyze existing business models and to develop new business models. In addition to the customer and benefit perspective, it also looks at the sales channels, the company’s resources and suppliers as well as the economic view of the company.
The BMC and the Canvas, which was slightly modified for this workshop, help companies better tailor their activities to their customers. With this work aid, the questions “How do I earn my money today?” and “How do I want to earn money in the future?” answered based on key key data and new business model ideas assessed for their potential for success.
The company Risse + Wilke has kindly allowed us to briefly present the reflection process on their business model, which they went through at the workshop:
Initial situation, impulse and approach to the solution
The traditional company Risse + Wilke has been a family-run, medium-sized cold rolling mill in Iserlohn for over 100 years. It sees itself as a specialist provider of high-quality cold strip and strip steel. This is the topic lead-free coating has been an important topic for some time. Thanks to decades of experience in this area, the company has developed its own new processes in order to be able to process material thicknesses up to 5 mm thick without lead. Thanks to the impulse from the managing director’s workshop, the company began to look at new markets in new countries in this product area. When it comes to pollutants, these are sometimes much more restrictive than the traditional markets in Europe, in which the company has been successful to date.
“Our innovative technology in the area of lead-free refining allows us to break new ground and engage with some markets in a completely new way and that is exactly what we have started now.”
Christoph Schöttler, Managing Director Risse + Wilke Kaltband GmbH & Co. KG
Fig: Compensation line at Risse + Wilke
The second impulse came from the KI NRW Future Center Contract businessi.e. the takeover of outsourced production processes from other companies to Risse + Wilke. During the analysis of various product groups carried out as part of the Business Model Canvas, it became apparent that the area of contract processing offers further development potential. Further expanding this area, which means offering more annealing capacities, rolling capacities or even cutting capacities, enables further partnerships to be created and grown.
“We became aware of this again in this business model canvas, so we can simply focus on it again and see what other opportunities we have to work with our partners.”
Christoph Schöttler, Managing Director Risse + Wilke Kaltband GmbH & Co. KG
Further impulses, derived from the business model canvas, were the first considerations and steps towards developing one digital twin. The aim of such a digital copy of the real production process is to be able to provide a product with important information as it flows from unit to unit. As a concrete step, a collaboration with a preliminary supplier of raw materials was agreed upon. This involves supplying certain data packages about the quality and quality of the primary material and then using this information for the first production step, i.e. adjusting the system accordingly.
“So if I know that there is a discrepancy or inaccuracy at a certain point in the belt, then I can have the system react accordingly and, above all, possibly take the information with me through the rest of the production process, up to the point where the finished material leaves our factory.”
Christoph Schöttler, Managing Director Risse + Wilke Kaltband GmbH & Co. KG
We, the Future Center KI NRW, are excited to see how the various strategic initiatives at Risse + Wilke will develop in the future. The first experiences already show that further IT skills need to be developed, especially when it comes to digital twins. The KI NRW Future Center has already offered its expertise and experience from similar projects and is looking forward to further collaboration in the future.
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