CLAAS - Circuit Viewer
The Circuit Viewer supports CLAAS service technicians in the office and in the field in fault analysis using interactive and machine-specific circuit diagrams.
Project goals
CLAAS stands for powerful, modern and innovative agricultural technology. The family-owned company is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of agricultural machinery such as combine harvesters and forage harvesters.
Modern agricultural machinery consists of several subsystems with over 100 functions that need to be understood when servicing is required. The associated circuit diagrams are already available to the technicians via the company’s own portal. However, due to the growing complexity of the machines, the previous processes reached their limits: In order to be able to understand the interrelationships in the circuit diagrams, which can be up to 600 pages long, the diagrams with relevant information first had to be found and then printed out and placed next to each other.
This process is time-consuming and holds a lot of potential for errors and unnecessary stress for technicians who have to repair combine harvesters under time pressure during harvesting in the field. To fundamentally improve this situation, CLAAS has developed the Circuit Viewer together with 4Soft GmbH.
View of the CLAAS Circuit Viewer
The benefits for CLAAS
Digitising the circuit diagrams with the help of the Circuit Viewer significantly simplifies and accelerates the service processes. The platform developed provides technicians with all the circuit diagrams of the CLAAS product range that they need for their service work. The Circuit Viewer displays the information with machine accuracy both online and offline: The diagrams displayed therefore only contain the exact components and connections of the machine that the technician is currently looking at.
In contrast to paper or PDF documents, the plans are also interactive. Users can call up tailored service documentation for specific problems or functional areas as well as combine and merge the basic plans of the respective machine with the plans of the various attachments at the touch of a button.
Finally, service staff can colour-code certain parts or areas and display additional service-relevant information. In addition, employees have the option of sending the circuit diagrams, including markings for possible follow-up actions, directly to the helpdesk. This also eliminates the need to print out pages of diagrams and check them manually. Suppliers can also easily access the data via the company’s own standard CLAAS file format CBS (CLAAS Schematic Bundle).
The contribution of 4Soft
Jens Kipshagen, Head of Technical Editorial, particularly appreciates 4Soft’s expertise and the partnership-based cooperation in the development project:
The 4Soft team first worked out the requirements for the platform and the existing data landscape with us. On this basis, 4Soft then designed both the architecture of the Circuit Viewer and subsequently developed the system according to the agile Scrum approach. We particularly liked the flexibility with which 4Soft responded to our requirements during the project.
After completion of the first productive release, 4Soft integrated the complete system into the existing system landscape. Quality assurance as well as maintenance and ongoing further development of the Circuit Viewer continue to fall within 4Soft’s area of responsibility.
