Skilled labor shortage in Germany

For some years now, it has been an acknowledged fact that Germany is lagging behind in the rollout of high-speed internet. Deutsche Telekom has set itself the annual target of supplying more than 2.5 million households with fiber optic connections. The company quickly realized that it would not be able to meet this target while following its previous procedures. The reasons for this are the large number of authorities from which approval must be sought, the heterogeneity of the data and data suppliers, the limited availability of specialist labor and the inadequacy of existing planning tools.

Deutsche Telekom therefore commissioned Fraunhofer IGD to design an overall system for the digital planning of fiber optic expansion and to then work with the company in getting it up and running. Ease of use, precision in planning and cost-effective operation were the core objectives. Innovative partial solutions, implemented on state-of-the-art cloud architectures, offer maximum parallel processing of very large quantities of images and ultraprecise 3D point clouds. System users benefit from automated workflows integrated into an interactive solution. This simplifies and accelerates decision-making and the planning of the fiber optic infrastructure down to the last centimeter.

The innovative planning tool has now been used to plan fiber optic connections for more than eight million households. The duration of the planning process has been reduced by as much as 75 percent. Consequently, the limited availability and capacity of specialist planners is better utilized. Without this acceleration, Deutsche Telekom’s expansion targets would not have been achievable. In addition, new calculation methods have reduced the costs for computing resources by a factor of up to 1,000. The runtime of certain process steps fell from 133 to 11 hours. At the same time, the quality of the visualizations has significantly increased the user-friendliness of the working environment.

Digital twins have a wide range of applications. In particular, they open up new avenues and areas of application for training and further education. However, the creation of teaching materials remains a major obstacle to cost-effective implementation. The knowledge required for this often exists only in the heads of the training experts. The necessary specialist knowledge in the design of learning content with digital tools is rarely available. Consequently, service providers are brought in from outside – a time-consuming and costly practice which restricts the flexibility of the design.

Fraunhofer IGD has developed efficient authoring systems and workflows that enable trainers to develop, implement and immediately deploy virtual training scenarios, even without personally having any programming knowledge. This shortens or eliminates the need for adaptation cycles. The evaluation showed that savings in time and in costs were as much as 50 percent and 60 percent respectively.

Fraunhofer IGD’s solutions can, for example, use existing 3D models directly and – if necessary – combine them in order to teach and learn interactively in immersive low-cost environments. They enable the training and further education of individuals as well as entire groups, whose members can learn with and from each other.

This makes training a much more attractive proposition for the learner: content can be “grasped” virtually in the truest sense of the word and is internalized more quickly. The learning process itself is more fun, and teaching becomes more efficient for specialist staff – their knowledge is reflected in reusable training scenarios which can be rolled out over and over again.

Sound decision-making should always take into account the relevant rules, regulations and current data. It often takes a lot of time to collect this data and prepare it in a user-friendly way.

Fraunhofer IGD is developing visual control centers for different application contexts. These bring together relevant data from the main sources, filter it and prepare it visually, thereby enabling specialists to quickly pick out the crucial information. The focus here is on task-specific information and knowledge requirements. Fraunhofer IGD’s solutions are used in care facilities, in information security and in production – always with individualized information visualizations. The dashboards offer interactive access to intelligent analysis functions.

In the case of care facilities, for example, Fraunhofer IGD has adapted its virtual control centers in such a way that the nursing staff have an overview of all the vital data of the patients on a particular ward. To enhance the connection to the real world and facilitate orientation, the information is superimposed on a virtual 3D model. This makes it easier for staff to recognize and pinpoint critical situations.

The innovative solution concept of interactive visual analysis also displays advantages in other areas, for example in countering cyber-attacks or in production, where it increases the efficiency of specialists, who can see all the crucial information at a glance, in some cases for the very first time. This allows them to focus more of their time on fulfilling their core tasks.

Fraunhofer IGD has been setting standards in visual computing for over 30 years. We accomplish this with a unique range of skills and technologies that we can flexibly combine to suit your particular needs and wishes.

Visual computing is image- and model-based information processing that blends computer graphics and computer vision. Put simply, it describes the ability to turn information into images and extract information from pictures. It is the basis of all the technological solutions used by Fraunhofer IGD and its partners.

Computer graphics involves processing and editing images, graphics, and multidimensional models with the aid of computers. Examples are virtual and simulated reality applications.

Computer vision is about teaching computers to “see.” A machine uses a camera to scan its surroundings and then processes the information with software. Examples include augmented reality.

Prognos AG is one of Europe’s oldest research companies specializing in economics. We have been producing analyses for companies, professional associations, foundations and organizations in the public sector since 1959. Working closely with our clients, we provide them with the necessary scope for shaping the future through research, consulting and support. Proven models provide the basis for reliable forecasts and scenarios. Employing more than 200 experts, the company has offices in no fewer than ten major European cities, namely Basel, Berlin, Bremen, Brussels, Düsseldorf, Freiburg, Hamburg, Munich Stuttgart and Vienna (there as subsidiary Prognos Europe GmbH).

Our project teams work on an interdisciplinary basis, combining theory and practice, science, business and politics.