Behind the Scenes at AMCON - AMCON Software GmbH

RFID Chip

verenadrees — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 09:20:19 +0000

This really gets under your skin

Microchips as implants in the era of digital transformation:

Opening doors without keys, always having your ticket with you, and a business card “at hand” anytime — at the 2018 Kontiki conference in Münster, three volunteers had a microchip implanted in their hand. After five months as a cyborg, our colleague Diana Schlee draws her first conclusions.

At the Kontiki conference in Münster in June 2018, Dr. Patrick Kramer, CEO and Chief Cyborg Officer of Digiwell, gave a presentation on the topic of chips as implants. His presentation was exciting, wild, and somehow quirky — which is partly because we Germans tend to be skeptical about such topics at first. In Sweden, several thousand people have already had a microchip implanted and use it as an electronic transit pass or digital payment method. Despite my skepticism, my hand went up when he asked in the workshop if anyone wanted to have an RFID chip implanted. Less than five minutes later, the rice-grain-sized chip was in my left hand between thumb and index finger, and I became a cyborg*.

First disappointment set in

The day after the implantation, I was able to save my business card and links to my social networks on the chip, which now anyone with an NFC-enabled smartphone can read — if I offer them my hand. A few weeks later, the service technician for our office locking system came by — my chance to link the chip to the system and hand over the transponder. Unfortunately, this was unsuccessful; my chip is not compatible with the locking system. We also couldn’t establish a connection with our ticket vending machine, as the NFC reader was unable to find my chip.

The Big Misconceptions

Nevertheless, this chip sparks plenty of conversation at trade fairs or in private settings. Many people react shocked or joke whether I have registered with Tasso (which is the platform for chipped pets ) and fall for the usual misconceptions.

Misconception #1: Now everyone knows where I am at all times.
That’s of course not true. With the implant, I cannot be tracked because the microchip has no power source of its own and cannot send out GPS data.

Misconception #2: I beep when I go through a security checkpoint.
When I go through airport security, I don’t trigger any alarms because the microchip implants contain too little metal.

Misconception #3: I can be hacked now. The implant can be written to with an NFC app, but direct skin contact is required. No one can change or read the contents on my chip remotely. Also, the implant can be protected with a password.

Conclusion on Digital Transformation:

Even though I cannot unlock our office door or the ticketing system with the chip yet, I would still consider getting it implanted again. However, I would wait a few more years until there are standardized industry norms, products, and companies that could benefit from it. From experience, it usually takes several years for such standards to establish, as technological transitions often involve high investment costs. Until large companies see clear advantages, there won’t be NFC-enabled readers in trains, retail stores, and other places. Nevertheless, the topic of digital transformation is ever-present, even though many remain skeptical. We keep encountering it in series like BLACK MIRROR or HUMANS.

Not too long ago, no one would have believed that we would all own a smartphone to handle everyday tasks. Nobody needs to go to the bank anymore for transfers, I order my new winter coat online, and I can conveniently book holidays or train tickets from anywhere using my smartphone. So what’s wrong with eventually paying with chips in our hands or always having our electronic ticket with us? No one would accidentally ride without a ticket anymore or have a problem if they forgot their wallet at home. Either way, the implant always sparks discussion and interesting conversations.

*A cyborg (from English “cybernetic organism”) is a living being that is technically augmented or enhanced. It is a form of human enhancement. (Gabler Business Dictionary)

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Data Protection and Quality Management – How Do They Fit Together?

verenadrees — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 09:16:43 +0000

Data protection has gained particular importance since the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect in May 2018. With the GDPR imposing numerous obligations on companies, data protection has become an ever-present topic. Establishing a data protection management system, maintaining records of processing activities, and conducting data protection impact assessments are just a few of the tasks involved.

To implement data protection requirements, it is advisable to align with existing quality management systems. For building its data protection management system, AMCON has utilized the structure of the DIN EN ISO 9001:2015 standard.

DIN EN ISO 9001:2015 is part of the EN ISO 9000 series and defines industry-independent requirements for a quality management system. It also takes into account customer expectations and regulatory requirements. AMCON regularly demonstrates its competence and performance in quality management through successful ISO certification audits by TÜV Rheinland.

For AMCON, data protection is a crucial quality factor. We have adopted methods and content from the standard to create synergies between quality management and data protection. This reduces extra effort and provides security when implementing a data protection management system. One similarity is that company management is responsible for both quality management and data protection implementation and effectiveness (see Chapter 5 – Leadership). Chapter 4 of DIN EN ISO 9001:2015 emphasizes process orientation, among other things. In addition to describing data processing procedures, we have established processes to respond promptly and in compliance with the GDPR in the event of a data breach. Chapters 7.4 (Communication), 7.5 (Documented Information), and 8.2 (Requirements for Products and Services) are further examples AMCON has considered for implementation. We have established the PDCA cycle—Plan, Do, Check, Act—as part of the continuous improvement process. Regular evaluation and optimization of services and measures are essential in both data protection and quality management (compare Chapters 9 (Performance Evaluation) and 10 (Improvement)).

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Familiar faces in a new function

verenadrees — Thu, 11 Feb 2021 11:23:27 +0000

Change process: We used the time to restructure

In every crisis lies an opportunity – you just have to seize it. That’s exactly what we did last year: we analyzed and streamlined our structures and processes and realigned ourselves in several areas. Due to strong growth over recent years, we have reorganized both the development department as well as sales, project, and product management. In the process, some familiar faces have taken on new roles. In this edition, Malte Gerber and Dirk Klingberg introduce their new areas of responsibility, share what they’re especially looking forward to, and tell you where you can find them going forward.

The essentials at a glance:

Malte and Dirk have been working with us in sales for several years. Malte was primarily responsible for the sales regions in the North and West, while Dirk looked after the South Germany area. Now, both of them are focusing on different areas of responsibility. As seasoned veterans in the industry, they know their way around very well. In the interview, Malte shares what he’s especially looking forward to in his new role as Head of Products, and Dirk talks about his new responsibilities as Head of Project Management.

Malte, you’re now Head of Products, leading your own department with a team of product managers, support staff, and documentation specialists. What are your main responsibilities, and what tasks does your department handle?

In my new role, I am responsible for all AMCON products regarding functionality, development costs, quality, documentation, sales opportunities, and market presence. This also involves close collaboration with customers because we want to continuously develop our products to keep our customers competitive. Since we remain hardware-independent, I also manage suppliers and work on expanding new business areas and partnerships.

What are you most looking forward to in this new position?

I’m excited about the responsibility and the creative freedom the new role offers. We want to further standardize our software so it can be deployed quickly in new projects with minimal adjustments. This benefits sales, development, but above all our customers. Personally, it’s important to me to communicate within the teams in a way that every individual understands how their work contributes to our overall success.

Will you still be involved in sales?

After a transition period, sales will no longer be part of my responsibilities. However, product management will continue to support sales during tenders and participate in customer meetings and bidding discussions.

Will we still see you at trade fairs and events?

Definitely. Trade fairs and conferences remain very important for trends and market insight. And of course, you’ll also find me at our own events like Boßeln or the User Days.

Dirk, as Head of Project Management, you are now the main contact for our project managers and support them with all project-specific issues. What other tasks are part of your role?

Basically, my new responsibilities cover everything related to projects. This includes resource planning and prioritization meetings, one-on-one consultations with project managers, team meetings, and of course on-site appointments with our customers. Additionally, the strategic development of project management is part of my duties, aiming to simplify coordination processes and better leverage synergies across projects. Furthermore, I will continue to work closely with sales and maintain many interfaces with product management.

What are you looking forward to most in your new role?

I’m really looking forward to the ongoing and upcoming projects as well as working closely with the project managers. We’ve already achieved a lot and want to top that with targeted strategic decisions. At the same time, I will continue to support sales during bids and, of course, attend customer meetings as soon as the situation with COVID allows.

Will we still see you at trade fairs and conferences?

Absolutely! I will definitely participate in trade fairs and events and am already looking forward to the User Days in autumn—hopefully, they can take place. In addition, we’re planning to give more of our own presentations at conferences and seminars to showcase projects together with our customers.

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Final Presentation of the ROCIT Project Group

verenadrees — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 13:35:37 +0000

Successful project completion could enhance sustainability in public transport (ÖPNV).

For one year, twelve Master’s students from the University of Oldenburg, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Jorge Marx Gómez, Barbara Rapp, and Cedrik Theesen, worked on their information management system to improve real-time forecasting for public transport (ÖPNV).

The project has now been completed and was presented in a Corona-compliant manner via Microsoft Teams to the VLBA department at Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg and the partner company AMCON from Cloppenburg.

The project group ROCIT developed a system designed to make work easier for bus operators and improve delay forecasts. Environmental factors, events, and weather were also taken into account. The group had access to two servers, used a total of 23 software services, processed over 1,200 tickets, generated 2,100 gigabytes of data, and invested 10,000 working hours. Prof. Dr. Marx Gómez was impressed: “The group’s result is outstanding, and the idea of such a system could transform the sustainability approach in the bus industry.”

Reliability makes public transport attractive and boosts climate protection.

The goal of the group was to develop a system with the potential to simplify the work of bus companies and improve predictions of delays caused by traffic jams, rush hour, or disruptions due to events. To achieve this, the project team maintained regular communication with the bus companies, who also provided real-time data for the project work. Climate protection, punctuality, and reliability were central to the conception and implementation. The result is a system that is unique in the market in this form. Precise predictions could encourage more people to switch to buses instead of using their private cars. “Delays are often a reason why passengers are dissatisfied with public transport and choose to drive instead. We are convinced that improved forecasts would fundamentally increase passenger satisfaction. That’s why we are very impressed by the group’s project work,” praised Olaf Clausen, CEO of AMCON.

User-friendliness and Data Analysis Put ROCIT on the Path to Success

Final conclusion of the group after twelve months of project work: The information management system ROCIT offers real added value for bus companies in the area of data analysis. In terms of user-friendliness and interface design, the tool is also far ahead of other products already available on the market. The COVID-19 pandemic did not hinder the successful completion, even though half of the project time was spent working from home and all coordination and meetings had to be held digitally. The publication of a short paper at the EnviroInfo2020 conference in September further emphasizes the scientific value of the project. The Research and Development department at AMCON will continue to pursue this topic.

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Final sprint: Project group ROCIT invites to the third quarterly presentation

verenadrees — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 13:50:47 +0000

Improved real-time map of the information platform for bus companies

The ROCIT project group at the University of Oldenburg has been working since September 2019 on their information management system, designed to make work easier for bus operators and improve delay forecasts. Environmental factors, events, and weather are also to be taken into account.

Due to the current situation, the quarterly presentation was once again held as a video conference via Microsoft Teams. In this blog post, we present the current project status and also had a chat with our CEO Olaf Clausen about why he finds the project so interesting and what improvements it brings for German bus operators and, consequently, for the passengers.

New Features on the Real-Time Map

Since the mid-year presentation and the introduction of the information management system to bus operator Thomas Terfloth at the end of February, the project group has implemented a number of new features in the real-time map. The real-time map now not only shows the routes of individual buses but also displays the speed of the vehicles. In general, visual improvements have been made to the direction indicators of buses and routes, and the highlighting of resources is now more prominent in the display. Additionally, there is a historical view of delays, and a custom map style provides a distinctive look and feel for the application.

How will things proceed until completion in September?

Currently, the group is still gathering feedback from the project supervisors at the university as well as from the AMCON team. Our training manager Rolf Norrenbrock, bus project manager Alex Mut, managing director Olaf Clausen, and some colleagues from sales are now testing the application and providing suggestions and ideas. Over the next three months, the project group will continue optimizing the bus delay prediction system and will also have further discussions with the bus operators Terfloth and Breitenbach. Besides the documentation, which is also part of the project, the final presentation will take place in September in front of the VLBA department at the University of Oldenburg, the involved bus companies, and AMCON.

#AMCONInside – Olaf explains how predictions have been made so far and what improvement potential ROCIT brings to make public transport even more attractive for passengers:

“So far, the prediction of arrival times at the next stops only takes into account the current delay – that is, the delay with which the bus departed from the last stop. If we had the data, we could also include the remaining route of a bus. However, this requires the exact routes of the buses. Most bus companies do not have this data, so we and our competitors can only use the current delay. It would, however, be desirable to consider additional factors, such as the weather or the current traffic situation during major events, to optimize the forecasts. That is why we are very impressed by the work of the ROCIT project group. Delays are often a reason why passengers are dissatisfied with public transport and prefer to switch to cars instead. We are convinced that improved forecasts would fundamentally increase passenger satisfaction if they can rely on them and are shown alternative routes that allow them to arrive on time. Only then can a real traffic transition succeed and mobility in Germany be sustainably changed.”

More about ROCIT at https://rocit.space/

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Half-time for ROCIT

verenadrees — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 14:07:35 +0000

Digital presentation of milestones and project goals for the second half

In light of the current developments surrounding COVID-19, the mid-year presentation of the master’s student group at the University of Oldenburg took place online and was a complete success.

Via Microsoft Teams, the students presented the current status of the ROCIT information management system, which aims to improve delay predictions in bus traffic using machine learning. After introducing the development teams (frontend, backend, and data warehouse), the project architecture, and the applied Scrumban process, they also showcased the conducted requirements analysis, the technologies used, and the successful implementation of Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery.

ROCIT shines with new features and differentiated settings

Afterwards, a live demo of the application was presented, and it now offers quite a lot. By entering a time on the map, the location of individual buses in a region at the desired time can be tracked. Additionally, individual buses, stops, and lines can be grouped and visually customized to provide a better overview of the fleet. The new dashboard system has received additional features and offers bus companies the ability to analyze the collected data from their bus fleet. Bus operators can view their data through predefined widgets from the open-source visualization software Grafana or via custom-developed widgets displayed as charts.

The data sources used for the prediction undergo an ETL process, are processed in a data warehouse (DWH), and factors influencing bus arrivals are identified. To calculate the prediction accordingly, machine learning processes were applied, and finally, a neural network was trained based on the data from the DWH.

Outlook for the second half

The group of twelve master’s students has already achieved so much, but half of the time still lies ahead of them. For the second half of the year, the agenda includes improving the prediction model, further developing the frontend and backend, and holding another workshop with clients, so that version 2.0 of the ROCIT information management system can be publicly presented at the University of Oldenburg at the end of September. A poster outlining the current development status, including the roadmap for the prediction model, is available here.

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ROCIT presents prototypes to bus operator Terfloth

verenadrees — Wed, 26 Feb 2020 14:17:19 +0000

Study group from the University of Oldenburg gets feedback from professionals

As part of an in-house presentation, the ROCIT project group presented the prototype of their information platform to the bus operator Thomas Terfloth and discussed with him the possibilities and potential of such a solution.

The ROCIT project group (“Real-time forecasts Optimization Concerning timetable Information of public Transport”) at the University of Oldenburg has been working since September 2019 on developing an information management system to optimize real-time forecasts for public transport. The goal is to document aspects such as punctuality, safety, and reliability of buses so that bus operators can make decisions based on the collected data to keep public transport future-proof. With the help of the information platform, data such as scheduled and actual times, traffic jams and accidents, driver behavior, and weather conditions can be collected to support bus operators in their daily decisions. For example, the system is intended to provide information on which alternative routes are most efficient at different times of day in case of disruptions on the route.

Project group gets feedback from bus operator Thomas Terfloth

After four months of intensive work, the moment arrived in mid-February: five members of the ROCIT project team presented the prototype to bus operator Thomas Terfloth. Terfloth is the project coordinator of the Emsland Süd Transport Association. As a bus operator, he knows exactly where existing software systems reach their limits and what would be desirable from his perspective to make dispatching work easier. In addition, our Managing Director Olaf Clausen, Project Manager Alex Mut, and our sales colleagues Malte Gerber and Dirk Klingberg were also present. As seasoned professionals in the industry, they know what bus operators want — but also how far developments in this area have already progressed on the market. Thomas Terfloth was impressed and provided the group with valuable suggestions for additional features that could be of interest to bus operators. These included data collection of bus mileage based on GPS data, as well as the ability to manually enter reasons for delays directly into the system.

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A trip to the Computer Museum Oldenburg

verenadrees — Fri, 17 Jan 2020 14:29:32 +0000

Hands-on experience with home computers and arcade machines from the 1970s and 80s

Our apprentices and dual students from the first year of training visited the Oldenburg Computer Museum (OCM) together with training manager Rolf Norrenbrock and had the chance to thoroughly test exhibits from the past 50 years.

Many of the original machines from the early days of the computer age were not only on display for our colleagues Lukas, Lars, Stefan, Johannes, Oliver, Daniel, Helmut, and Florian, but they also had the chance to try them out and even program in BASIC, together with our training manager Rolf at the Oldenburg Computer Museum. In addition to systems like the digital PDP-8, Commodore PET, Apple ][, Sinclair ZX81, Commodore C64, Atari 800XL, and Amiga 500, the exhibition also includes important game consoles, rare computers, and specialized literature. The event was held together with other training companies from the Weser-Ems region and was initiated by the trainers’ working group. That’s why our colleagues were lucky enough to have some specially selected machines in the arcade hall set up exclusively for this visit. The famous Pong table in the “back living room” was also available to the group.

Floppy disks, Atari and Co.

The apprentices and dual students definitely had fun using the “outdated” technology, as most members of Generation Z know floppy disks and the like only from stories and had never used magnetic storage media before. Of course, game consoles have also changed significantly over the decades. While Atari is still familiar to our older colleagues, for the younger generations, it usually starts with the PlayStation or Wii. “It was fascinating to see how hardware and software have evolved over the past decades, but that the foundations of today’s computer architecture are still largely based on concepts from the 1980s,” says Rolf Norrenbrock.

If you’d like to visit the OCM, you can find more information here: The OCM is open every Tuesday from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM, and admission is €2.00 per person.

Der Beitrag A trip to the Computer Museum Oldenburg erschien zuerst auf AMCON Software GmbH.