Software for tomorrow: An interview with the pioneers of SYNAOS

Dr. Wolfgang Hackenberg, Dr. Lennart Bochmann and Tobias Gagern were able to win large corporations as customers early on with their software solution. Together, the three founders of SYNAOS look at an industry in motion, the essence of a successful software product and how their company is leading the overdue change in intralogistics.

What future is intralogistics heading for?‍

‍Dr. Lennart Bochmann: We believe that hybrid intralogistics is the future. With the SYNAOS Intralogistics Management Platform, we can seamlessly control all transport resources that can complete an order on the shop floor on one platform. This includes not only robots, but also manual industrial trucks, such as forklifts and workers — because despite advances in AI and automation technology, there are processes that are difficult to fully automate. The interaction of autonomous devices with humans will remain decisive.

Yet automation is increasing exponentially — what is important for companies in the industry?

‍Tobias Gagern: Many companies are now at the point where they realize: This is going to be very important to us — but how do I actually do that, and what kind of processes do I actually need? Some companies currently drive around the area with a note.

Dr. Wolfgang Hackenberg: The industry is increasingly realizing that we have hit a nerve with our software. I think we've addressed something that many customers are only now really aware of. In intralogistics, there is still a great deal to be achieved at the individual locations. Market attention is becoming increasingly strong. Relatively little has been invested in intralogistics for a long time because it is a very challenging environment. Increasing automation must be well orchestrated. Anyone who does this well has a huge competitive advantage. This problem is becoming more and more noticeable today — we thought through the answer five years ago and designed SYNAOS around it.

What impression does SYNAOS want to leave on the market in the next two years?‍

‍LB: Our customers are generally large, globally active corporations. They want to increase savings and efficiency potential. Hence our motivation to set up a strong project team that works with customers to bring these things into reality and roll out this quality of service globally. In us, these companies have found a partner for digitizing intralogistics, not just a supplier for an individual project.

TG: The fact that large companies and therefore relevant accounts rely on a global partner instead of 25 providers is a trend that we are seeing ever more strongly.

LB: Our system is business-critical, i.e. relevant to production. Our customers are looking for a long-term partner who has the necessary know-how in digitization, but also in intralogistics processes and the software side.

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Is it time to use a software solution to help shape an industry in which there is a lot of talk about hardware?

TG: Yes, because we have the first right software solution for the problem. A very good product is a sufficient requirement — but you also have to work with the customer to ensure that they understand digitized, automated, optimized intralogistics at all. This will be another journey. How was the SYNAOS software built, and what does this mean for users?

WH: We've always said that there must be a separation between backend software and hardware-related software. This consequence made things harder for us in the beginning, but it now gives us a big lever. This allowed us to remain pure in the approach we built our software.

“We want to offer a solution that is not only applicable to one market. ”

LB: We were the first cloud system in this area — this relieves the customer's IT burden. Because he doesn't have to worry about his own infrastructure, we have more responsibility. In the end, we get more efficiency for the customer — fewer personnel, fewer robots, more capacity for more orders, for example.

WH: The modularity between software and hardware is another point. Interface standards are very important here.

With its focus on the VDA5050 interface standard, SYNAOS was able to win over a major customer such as Volkswagen early on. An important impetus for the industry?

WH: The fact that we were able to win Volkswagen with our vision has contributed a lot to the successful development of this interface standard on the market and that others have noticed that something is happening. A strong pillar of scalability in robotics. There is no need to renegotiate every time, but you can work according to the plug and play principle. As SYNAOS, we have driven this forward right from the start. Until now, you had to defend yourself as the person responsible: Why are you investing in SYNAOS or in VDA 5050? This will change massively in the next 12 to 18 months. The board members will call their logistics managers and ask: Why don't we do that too? From day one, we focused our concept on this scenario.

“Automation must be orchestrated. Anyone who does this well has a huge competitive advantage. ”

Disruption as a master plan?

‍LB: Our concept is not a “lucky shot,” but repeatable and scalable.

What does it look like in terms of scaling? What are the next steps for the industry?

LB: Looking ahead, the industry has a duty to prove that scaling efficient intralogistics with robots works. We are out of the proof of concept phase, in which you let three vehicles drive in circles. We're entering a phase of the mainstream market where it's about scaling that up. This task is faced not only by us as software manufacturers, but also by hardware manufacturers, who only sell a few hundred devices per year. Moving things from A to B or delivering them on time is the same in many industries. We want to offer a solution that can be used not only on a market, but wherever things are moved. That is what we are still passionate about today.

WH: We have all the ingredients needed to build a dominant software player from Europe. We do not operate in a vacuum of software — this includes expertise in processes, logistics and also hardware. We also have a modern approach to optimization and AI. We have a lot of plans — and we can still do that.

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