Munich In many places in German industry, production is already highly automated. But there is still a lot of catching up to do in the warehouses and in intralogistics within the plants, says Andreas Funkenhauser, co-founder of the Nimmsta start-up: “Many people are still running through the warehouse with pen and paper.”
Nimmsta has developed a kind of smartwatch for warehouse workers to wear on the back of their hand. With this you can not only scan barcodes, the device also shows the wearer what he should do next and from where he has to get how many parts. According to Nimmsta, companies could use this “high-performance picking” to speed up their warehouse logistics by up to 50 percent and significantly reduce the error rate.
Wearables, i.e. digital auxiliary devices that employees wear on their bodies, are intended to help against the shortage of skilled workers by guiding unskilled workers safely through the halls and accelerating the processes. In their current industry report, the logistics industry association MHI and the management consultancy Deloitte count wearables among the key technologies in logistics in the next few years. 80 percent of the companies stated in the study that they want to use it in the next five years.
Wearables: Pioneer Pro Glove has 2000 industrial customers worldwide
A pioneer among wearables providers is Pro Glove. The company emerged almost ten years ago from a “Make it wearable” competition by the chip manufacturer Intel and was taken over by Nordic Capital in 2022.
Pro Glove sells scanners that can be worn as gloves, among other things, and today has more than 2000 industrial customers worldwide. According to industry estimates, sales should be in the high double-digit million range.
The Munich company now has more than 2000 industrial customers.
(Photo: obs)
The portable barcode scanners are not only a relief for employees, says Pro Glove CEO Stefan Lampa. The data obtained with their help can also be analyzed with suitable software in order to further optimize the processes. Pro Glove wants to “provide cross-platform solutions” and “use artificial intelligence” and is therefore investing in these areas, says Stefan Lampa.
Nimmsta offers devices and software on a subscription basis
Competitor Nimmsta has sold 1,500 devices so far, and Mercedes and Rewe were among the first customers. Nimmsta wants to invest the almost five million euros from a multi-stage round of financing in the conversion of its own sales model: With “Workflow-as-a-Service”, customers should pay a monthly usage fee for the device and software instead of purchasing it.
The Nimmsta founders derived the name of their company from the request “Take it” from the Bavarian dialect.
(Photo: Nimmsta)
The Nimmsta founders and co-CEOs Andreas Funkenhauser and Florian Fuhland originally founded an engineering office, where the idea for the logistics smartwatch came up one day: A customer who was still working with classic scanner guns was looking for a more efficient solution for his warehouse. Today’s competitor Pro Glove offered back-of-hand scanners back then. Funkenhauser says: “That was progress because the workers no longer had to carry the pistols around with them.”
Five minutes of instruction should be enough
But so that the warehouse workers can also communicate with the system, Nimmsta developed the smartwatch with a touch display. The device can be connected to classic warehouse management systems. Co-founder Florian Ruhland says: “After five minutes of instruction, anyone who, for example, has to collect parts for a shipping package from the shelves of an online retailer can handle it.”
In the future, Nimmsta will also offer so-called light tags. The customers attach these to the shelves or drawers, they light up and thus show the employee the way to the next part – similar to classic “pick-by-light” systems.
The networked lights also show the warehouse employees away from their display in which drawer they can find the parts they need.
(Photo: Nimmsta)
Nimmsta’s solutions could actually make warehouse work more efficient, says an industry insider. However, because of the touch display, the scanner’s battery runs out more quickly than in competing products, which also lasted for several shifts. Nimmsta also has to convince other investors in larger financing rounds in order to be able to expand sales and deliver larger quantities, as competitor Pro Glove is already doing.
Apple and Samsung are competing with Nimmsta
One of the competitors in logistics wearables is Feig with the Hyware barcode scanner that is worn on the back of the hand. According to Feig, he not only wants to increase efficiency with the device: “A scanner that has to be picked up and put down again and again is inefficient and endangers occupational safety.” be tracked.
In addition, there is new competition from the smartwatch sector: suppliers such as Apple and Samsung are pushing into the professional niche, they already offer solutions for baggage handling at airports. At the Logimat logistics fair, Pro Glove recently demonstrated the interaction of its glove scanners with the Apple Watch’s watchOS operating system. The employee can receive further instructions via the clock. In a parts warehouse, Mercedes also combines a scanner with smart glasses, i.e. glasses with a built-in screen on which the information is displayed.
Smart wearables are intended to alleviate the shortage of skilled workers
So far, the main motive for using wearables has been to improve productivity. In the meantime, however, they should increasingly compensate for the shortage of skilled workers. According to a study by the German Economic Institute (IW), the shortage of skilled workers rose to a record 630,000 vacancies last year, for which there were no suitably qualified job seekers nationwide.
According to IW, however, there is currently no shortage of workers. There are enough potential employees, but they lack the necessary qualifications. This is where Nimmsta and its competitors want to start and lower the qualification barriers with their devices. The Nimmsta smartwatches currently cost just under 1000 euros. In the future, they will be rented out with the software for 50 to 100 euros a month. Co-founder Ruhland says the companies could recoup the additional costs “within weeks”.
In the current year, Nimmsta wants to generate seven-digit sales, and according to the business plan, it could be several hundred million euros by 2026 if the technology catches on. “We can become a unicorn,” Funkenhauser is convinced, i.e. a start-up with a valuation of more than one billion euros.
The next round of financing is expected to bring in five to ten million euros in mid-2024. According to their own statements, the founders are then also open to a takeover by a strategic investor such as Honeywell or the hand-held scanner specialist Zebra.
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