The AR startup, which is bringing digitalization to the interactions between humans and machines, just graduated from gener8tor and Fit 4 Start. Silicon Luxembourg caught up with founder and managing director Meysam Minoufekr to learn more about their journey and solution.
When did you found Dropslab and what motivated you to launch it?
We founded Dropslab Technologies in Aachen in 2018 and moved to Luxembourg in November 2020. We heard about the support startups receive in Luxembourg and realised that things went faster and easier here, so for us, it made sense to move. Also, in Luxembourg startups watch each other’s backs whereas in Germany you are just one of many.
There are two aspects that helped motivate me. On a personal level, I think I can have the biggest impact on an organisation when I am running the company. I’ve worked at big companies and there you are just one small part of the whole system and you can make less of an impact.
At the company level, I saw a lot of manufacturing companies working on digitalisation and process optimization but only at the machine level. What they were missing is the interactions between humans and machines. Humans are not completely replaceable and that is why Dropslab has developed human-centric assistance tools that extend the capabilities of workers on the shop floor, machine operators and field workers alike.
We give them the information they need, when they need it and connect them with a digital factory or complex machinery, allowing them to do their work faster, at higher quality and with fewer errors.
You offer three different solutions. What can you tell me about them?
Dropslab Core is a solution for process designers and process owners. It allows them to design detailed step-wise workflows as well as create tasks for other operators and colleagues.
Our client application is Dropslab Sense. By using smart glasses or an AR version for their tablet/smartphone, workers can easily look up the task they need to perform and double-check whether they are doing it correctly.
Lastly, Dropslab Join is an application that enables colleagues to communicate to one another on one single platform. These three solutions come together as part of an ecosystem of solutions.
Does your solution require an expert to set it up?
It is actually very straightforward and most of the process owners we’ve worked with are very quick to figure it out and start creating workflows themselves. One of our clients, a machine builder in Germany wanted us to train them but their guys figured it out so quickly, that all that was needed was answering their questions for 15 minutes.
Which sectors is your solution targeted at?
We’re targeting a big domain of the production manufacturing sector. Right now, we are active in the machine building sector in the Benelux region as well as Austria and Switzerland. After that, we want to spread all over the EU and move increasingly to the production manufacturing sector.
The next market is building construction, utilities, oil and gas and so on. And the third, most profitable, but also most challenging sector is the medical one. There we are trying to push our solution in the surgery room. This was also the domain we were exploring in the Fit4Start programme.
How many Luxembourgish companies are you working with?
We’re currently talking to training centers such as Emile Metz. We have also worked with Luxembourgish companies such as CPE for a proof of concept and we would also like to talk more to Luxembourgish machine builders.
So far, we have focused on big clients in Germany such as Siemens and B.Braun to show other machine builders: look this is how it’s working for other clients, so it might also be interesting for you.
How does your solution make use of AR?
Our solution makes use of assisted reality but it’s less about fancy images and more about creating added value. We are not so much technology oriented as we are solution oriented. We try to be problem solvers not tech evangelists.
When we first created the solution in 2018, we were a bit too early with the technology. But there was a mindset shift after Covid and clients started coming to look for us. Most companies have digitalised their processes and now they come to us to fill the gaps, which is basically the operator interacting with the digital factory.
Could you share a use case of your solution?
Currently, we are working with a big company that is producing gas turbines. When they produce these they need to ensure that the quality of every one of the 520 pieces is up to par. Usually, this would take two guys, with one of them jotting down the measurements and the other one doing the measuring.
With our solution, this can be done by a single person who reads the values to our system which automatically inputs them in a digital file, thereby making the process 100% more efficient.
Next to Fit 4 Start, you also participated in gener8tor. What did you learn there?
Gener8tor is a great programme and the guys we worked with really made us dig deep and question all the details. It is really helpful to have people who have founded their own companies help you through this process. You can compare it a bit to the NBA league who visit amateur college teams and share their knowledge. You get to see a different mindset and learn that you can actually achieve the same level of success.
