Bosch (BO) is a leading global supplier of technology and services employing roughly 400,000 associates worldwide in 60 countries and operating in four business sectors: Mobility Solutions, Industrial Technology, Consumer Goods, and Energy and Building Technology. As a leading IoT provider, BO uses its expertise in sensor technology, software, and services, as well as its own IoT cloud, to offer its customers connected, cross-domain solutions from a single source. Such AI solutions critically depend on the timely availability of high-quality data which is naturally distributed across multiple players ranging from BO’s units, i.e., factories, logistics, to integrators, consumers and recyclers of BO products. Harmonization through enrichment and integration of these data requires non-trivial techniques and mature software solutions that can enrich the data to the level when it can be effectively and efficiently processes by the AI solutions.
As a partner of the enRichMyData project, Bosch (BO) presents a business case within the automotive sector, which focuses on secure and standardized data exchange in the automotive value chain. The case revolves around automated robotic welding, where Bosch provides components and software solutions for welding machines used by various factory owners, including BO and renowned car producers. The objective is to create a data enrichment pipeline for AI-based analytics related to automatic welding robots. Currently, the enrichment process is manual and time-consuming, involving the use of welding ontologies expressed in OWL2 and SHACL. BO’s automated welding solutions generate a significant amount of data, including sensor data, error messages, log files, reports, and configurations. This data is crucial for analyzing and optimizing the welding process. Each body-in-white (BIW) contains thousands of welding spots, each accompanied by four types of protocols capturing various aspects of the welding operation. Additionally, there are three databases containing descriptive information about the welding processes.
Bosch will employ the enRichMyData Toolbox to enhance its automated welding solutions within their business sectors. DiscoverR is the tool that helps discover unstructured welding data and refines welding ontologies, preparing them for the data transformation step. WrappR automates the mapping process between the data and welding ontologies, and provides tools for exploring and visualizing the constructed data. CleanR offers interactive data cleaning and generates knowledge graphs, ensuring the data is high quality and well-organized. StructR enriches non-structured textual data, such as machine settings, making the data more detailed and usable. LinkR automates the manual data annotation process, linking tabular data with ontological terms.
Additionally, Bosch plans to use other infrastructure services like GreenR, which creates dashboards targeting CO2 neutrality, aligning with Bosch’s strategic goal of sustainability. Together, these tools will create a robust data enrichment pipeline, crucial for AI-based analytics in automated welding.