DigitalituM Podcast Episode 17 -Gerd Bart - Transaction Network - Digital Services Platform for OEMs

🎙️ DigitalituM Podcast – At the Intersection of Manufacturing & Digital Transformation 
Episode Title: Rethinking Aftermarket Services 

In this episode of the DigitalituM Podcast, host Markus Rimmele welcomes Gerd Bart, Founder and CEO of Transaction Network, a pioneering provider of digital service platforms for machine builders and manufacturers. Gerd shares his fascinating journey from carpenter to digital innovator and explains how Transaction Network is reshaping the future of lifecycle management in manufacturing.

🔧 Why You Should Listen:
Traditional after—sales service approaches are broken, relying on spreadsheets, email ping-pong, and reactive firefighting. Gerd explains how Transaction Network solves these challenges with a fully integrated, cloud-based, and AI-enhanced service platform designed specifically for industrial machinery OEMs and their customers.

🧠 What You'll Learn in This Episode:

• How Gerd's experience with platforms like eBay Germany led to the foundation of Transaction Network
• The meaning behind the name "Transaction Network" and the importance of digital ecosystems in manufacturing
• A breakdown of the platform's key modules:
   🔹 Asset Management – Complete digital twin of each machine, including BOMs, 2D/3D CAD views, software, and maintenance logs
   🔹 Spare Parts Webshop – Custom-pricing, availability tracking, and direct ordering linked to machine-specific data
   🔹 Service Ticketing – AI-supported communication that eliminates delays and miscommunication
   🔹 Condition Monitoring & Predictive Maintenance – Real-time IoT-based monitoring and intelligent rule engines
   🔹 AI Integration – AI Agents (like ChatGPT) that support technicians with diagnostics, instructions, and parts sourcing
   🔹 DataX – A robust integration engine to connect with SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, PLM, and CRM systems within weeks

💡 Key Takeaways:

• Transaction Network isn't an MES — it complements it by managing everything after the machine is delivered.
• The platform drastically reduces downtime, improves service efficiency, and enhances customer satisfaction.
• Their unique value: a SaaS solution that's plug-and-play, affordable, and scalable. You don't need to invest millions in building your software — you subscribe and go.
• Their Transaction Network Box enables secure remote updates directly to machines — no reinvention required.

📈 The Bigger Picture:
Gerd and Markus also discuss how Transaction Network is navigating the AI revolution in manufacturing. From automating predictive maintenance to enabling more innovative service delivery, Gerd believes AI is not replacing humans but elevating them, eliminating repetitive work so technicians can focus on higher-value tasks.

🚀 For Machine Builders & OEMs:
This episode is a must-listen if you want to improve your aftermarket services, digitize your customer support, or bridge the data gap between engineering and operations. Transaction Network offers an actionable, scalable solution without the overhead of building custom software.

📲 Connect with Gerd Bart:
🔗 LinkedIn Profile
🌐 Transaction Network We

Stay tuned for more inspiring conversations about manufacturing and digital transformation. Also, remember to follow and subscribe to the DigitalituM Podcast for exclusive insights from industry leaders and innovators.

We appreciate your likes and comments. If you feel you can add value to this podcast series and want to be our guest, send an email to Sales@DigitalituM.com

Transcript

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (00:01.313)
Welcome to the Digitalitum podcast at the intersection of manufacturing and digital transformation. My today's guest is Gerd Barth with Transaction Network and we're talking about the topic digital services. Welcome Gerd to my podcast.

Gerd Bart (00:16.046)
you

Gerd Bart (00:20.396)
Hey Marcus.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (00:22.263)
So let's dive right into it. Tell a little bit about yourself. Who are you? Where are coming from? How did you get into Transaction Network?

Gerd Bart (00:33.23)
This is really nice question because it's a long story but I can keep it short if you want. I started first as a carpenter. This is my original job where I was and then the first thing is the BTX system from the German Telecom came up and there I developed a small chat and we...

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (00:55.085)
Mm-hmm.

Gerd Bart (00:58.348)
We make some software and this was very funny for me and so I get the first feet into the door round about the software development part. And then I drifted up. I was a project leader of DoYou, I was project leader of eBay, so it was the German part, Alando, was the name of eBay. And then of course I was very fast in the retail part and also in the e-commerce part, but after...

I think it was 10 years he comes up with that the manufacturing comes to me and told me can you build up a small portal or can you build up a platform for us where we can find all relevant documents what we have around the process, what we do when we manufacture a machine. and then this was really the part that I built up the first platform for a manufacturer.

And with this part, I came to a SAP company and I make the business development part about all platforms, digitization of services with the machine manufacturing. And we have a lot of successful customers. with all this and with SAP, it was a very expensive part. as you know, SAP and the license, it's not so cheap.

And if you build up some projects with SAP, then you need one year, two years. So this is really normal going. And in this part, we decided to build up our own company. So we build up a software who have a digital platform, service platform for our manufacturer, and build it up as a software, as a service company. And not based on SAP, based on our own software and so.

We are very fast and very cheap with our manufacturer to build up the the rule services totally, to make it a digitalization on our platform. This is idea behind it and we built up our company for four years. We started, was the third of May in 2021.

Gerd Bart (03:19.084)
and we started with our company, are very successful till today.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (03:23.981)
That's great. And the name of the company is Transaction Network. How did you come up with that name? What is behind that and what's the meaning of it?

Gerd Bart (03:34.54)
I think one point is very, very important. it's called network because we make the network between the manufacturer and his customer. it's possible that we have all the manufacturer on the right on the view as the customer who go into the portal. He has a view above all his manufacturers. So we have a kind of

ecosystem and this is a part of network and what is between the manufacturer and the customer we make transactions. this is the name of the company Transaction Network.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (04:16.653)
Cool. And if you get asked, what is transaction network actually doing? What is the product and what problem does it solve? How do you explain that in just a few sentences?

Gerd Bart (04:32.822)
This is very difficult in a few sentences because we have a different view to the platform. So if you have the view as a manufacturer, then we help in the totally basic stuff of all the services, processes that a manufacturer has with his customers, so we call it asset management. We can have the completely part of buying things, identify things.

So it's a complete purchasing part, online shop, a service part, this ticket system and so on. And of course, also the condition monitoring. So have a look what's going on on the machine. On the second view, we have, of course, the producer and he have a look over all his machines and over all his manufacturer. And in this case, we have a lot of artificial intelligence and we reduce

The time when the complete machine is broken down, for example, so we help the producer to speed up his production.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (05:45.341)
And in this area, I see an overlapping into a classic MES system, which has kind of similar tasks and values what it can bring to a manufacturer.

Gerd Bart (06:02.804)
Not really, because MS has its focus directly on the production to plan and to execute the production itself. We have all the focus on all parts coming from the manufacturer side, so we discuss about all the services you have between the manufacturers.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (06:24.439)
So you focusing purely on the life cycle management part.

Gerd Bart (06:30.188)
Here you can call it like this, total is this one. So if you have a broken machine, then it's a question what you can do now. Then you need the service of the manufacturer and to bring this together at one platform, this idea behind.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (06:45.971)
And so to sum it up, would you be okay to call your platform a digital services platform for machine builder and manufacturers? Or is that too short of a comprehension?

Gerd Bart (07:02.445)
Yes.

Gerd Bart (07:06.998)
No, this is totally right.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (07:10.039)
Good, so then our viewers kind of know what this is all about. Let's talk about the challenges what typically machine builders have when they build complex machinery, they sell it to their client, and then actually the life cycle of that machine starts. It operates, it produce part, it goes bad, things break, service is needed, spare parts is needed.

How does this process typically look in the old world?

Gerd Bart (07:45.422)
You can call it in three words, word, axle and a telephone. So this I think is a typical problem what machine builder have with his customer though they have a lot of process who goes around who have a ping pong game between all the stuff. So give me an order of this part, okay the question back which part do you mean exactly, which machine do you mean exactly and so

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (08:11.234)
Mm-hmm.

Gerd Bart (08:14.53)
This is a typical process what they have. And what we do is to have a focus on all the digital data, know that everything is clear in this communication part between, of course, the manufacturer and the machine build. So this is idea behind. for this, we bring all the data in our platform. So it's everything clear. You make a click. The customer make a click, for example.

sent a question via a ticket to the machine builder. But then in the ticket, everything is clear. It's clear where is the customer, where is the machine, which part, and so on. So this reduce, of course, the time on the machine builder side. And this is a big, big, big idea that he have more time for the relevant service.

not only for back office service.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (09:15.937)
Yeah, I would add to that that two additional challenges are reactive, kind of like firefighter mode. You react when the fire is burning and then you have to react quickly and you have to have the resources available to do that, which is of course always a challenge with having the right people and the right amount of people and in a 24 seven environment. If you look at the whole world,

and then comes in my point of view also the inefficiency in if you work very reactive, you either are completely booked out, triple off the time, or you're just sitting and waiting and you have your resources sitting and waiting and you have to pay them all until that call comes in, which is overall not very efficient and therefore doesn't generate

value and revenue for your company.

Gerd Bart (10:16.788)
Exactly, you say it in the right words.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (10:20.257)
Thank you so much. I'm coming from this industry as well and understand the problems very well as I have been in my previous life, service manager, service director, organizing field service in the Americas for machine builders. And I know all these challenges. So on one side, we have all these challenges.

On the other hand, we have now this digital services platform transaction network, which is of course a big thing. We need to break it down a little further in the different modules what you guys offer and explain quickly what the individual modules, what benefit and value they bring. And let's start with the asset management.

First of all, why do you need that?

Gerd Bart (11:19.758)
Yeah, of course, because asset management is the totally base and the base is for all information what we have and what we need on our platform. asset management contains all information about the machine. You have a totally part catalog, so it's a spare parts catalog, build of material, totally we have also a build of material of software. And we can make, for example, a software download for your machine and all this stuff, what it's really

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (11:36.973)
Fill of material.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (11:49.165)
Mm-hmm.

Gerd Bart (11:49.55)
If you look for example on the new government regulatory, what is coming up in Baltimore in the EU, not in the US. But it's very important for us and of course we have all the things about 2D, 3D view about the machine so you can drill down in your machine, can identify all the parts very easy.

You can have your smartphone, can identify your parts, you get all the information about this. Of course, behind this asset management stands very fast the next model and it's called online shop. So we have in the asset management part of course your personal price, what you have defined in your contract. we have also the, oh, forfugbarkeit, I don't know the English word.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (12:19.671)
Mm-hmm.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (12:43.959)
availability.

Gerd Bart (12:44.92)
There is a ability of course of each part and this is very helpful though you get all the information on one thing at one model.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (12:56.309)
also broken down again on a machine level as the challenge or the problem to be solved is in the old way, a client calls the machine builder and tells them, hey, on my machine, there's a part defect. And then comes this ping pong of either email or phone calls in the identification. What is actually the part, the correct part.

And then at one point of time, it goes into a quote and to a pricing, which to my understanding can be easily solved in a specific spare parts web shop, what you offer, which is then based on the bill of material of this particular machine where I'm from. I'm actually sure I'm getting the right part, which fits to that particular machine.

Gerd Bart (13:49.614)
Correct, but you mentioned now the ping pong and the ping pong we handle it with our service model and in the service model we have a calendar so you can plan all your maintenance and we have a small ticket system and the ticket system is the communication part between the manufacturer and the customer and so on.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (13:57.175)
Mm-hmm.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (14:10.733)
Mm-hmm.

Gerd Bart (14:14.126)
all your models have an interlocked thing. It's very important in our platform. Everything is not a single model, every model is interlocked together and brings the service and the information in the right way, on the right part, the right information to the right person. So this is idea behind.

Gerd Bart (14:40.888)
We have a complete webshop, it's right, it's a very big webshop. We have, I think, functionalities, functions in this webshop based, of course, on B2B scenarios. we have...

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (14:58.131)
Is it as cool as amazon.com?

Gerd Bart (15:00.646)
Of course, of course. I don't think you can make, you can look at Amazon and then have to look at our shop. Our shop, it's perfect fit for this, what's going on in the service part, what's going on with the manufacturer, what's going on in searching and identify parts and then to buy it.

very fast and quickly at that form of course, but it's not Amazon. Amazon is a marketplace here. Of course, we can also, our shop, it's possible that you build up a marketplace so you can put in all your C parts, you can also put in all components from a components manufacturer, and you can also bring in some consultants, agencies, and so on.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (15:56.813)
So the focus is specifically on the manufacturing industry and if we talk about the webshop about the different type of products you have there as in the machine building world you have always purchasing items or catalog items which you just buy out of a catalog.

Gerd Bart (15:57.378)
that is possible.

Gerd Bart (16:03.501)
Yeah.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (16:20.801)
but you have also manufactured items made via CNC additive manufacturing, which are one-offs of a specific CAD file, which of course are more difficult to handle as you have a different price for quantity one versus quantity 10.

Gerd Bart (16:40.536)
Yeah. One thing, in my opinion, it's very important. We are a closed shop. So you can only go in if you are a customer of a manufacturer. If you're not a customer, then you will see nothing.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (16:54.081)
Yeah, there's no guest access. have to be logged in, registered. And so you know, and you have validated your client and a competition, for example, cannot log in and kind of steal your information or your pricing.

Gerd Bart (17:13.646)
But we have also, for example, that we have a 3D printer behind our shop. So you can put parts who is ready for printing in the basket, then you make your order. And with the order, we generate the license for the printer. And then we set this license directly to the 3D printer, and he printed it out directly in your production. So we are very, very fast to identify parts and, of course, to get

then the parts directly in your production hall. So this is a very big issue, of course.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (17:50.295)
Yeah, definitely. One big issue what manufacturers and machine builders have is, yeah, it's nice to have a platform and to have all this data and everything is connected. But at one point of time, the data you have already in your different systems need to get into that system. And

In a normal world, this means a lot of manual data entry and data validation, which at the end of the day means then a lot of time, a lot of efforts and a lot of cost. What are you guys doing different here in order to speed up this process and don't make it.

so cumbersome with manual data entry and all of this ridiculous work, what nobody wants and needs to do.

Gerd Bart (18:50.766)
Exactly, and this is the point why we generate or where we build up our own integration platform. The integration platform is called DataX. It's our own software from our side and it stands behind our transaction network platform. And this integration platform helps to speed up all integration over all your systems from three months, five months to really, really

weeks. for example we have a SAP adapter, as I mentioned we are the first SAP consulting company and this adapter helps that we get all the information from SAP during only two days. So this is really speed up and this is really that we get a fixed

package i will mention with our platform and the integration platform though you can use it directly and if you are a manufacturer and want to use it by your own you can map your own data in a graphical way on our integration platform though you can do it all this stuff the complete integrations or we will call it the called bleed onboarding on our platform by your own

And this really I will mention and I will tell you, you can do it I think in one week.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (20:20.149)
And what are the typical different systems what a machine builder is using and what type of data is in the typical system? Like the ERPs, the CRMs, the PDMs and so on. Can you kind of break that down?

Gerd Bart (20:34.126)
I think it's a typical system but they have the ERP system, normally they have Microsoft or SAP. The next is of course a CRM system so for all the field service interaction and also customer information so we have it both. So you have the field service management tools and of course you have a PLM system so they are stored more, the CAD, the graphics.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (20:47.563)
all the customer information.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (21:01.441)
documents and bill of materials and all of that.

Gerd Bart (21:05.15)
Exactly. Bill of Materials, I think you will find it more in the ERP system. But yes, this is a typical system overview. But if you look on international brands, then of course they have a lot of ERP systems, maybe in the US, one in Germany, one in, I don't know, Italy or somewhere. And to bring all these systems together in one platform, is also one big issue and one big part who can handle.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (21:10.37)
Mm-hmm.

Gerd Bart (21:34.338)
with our integration plan.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (21:37.335)
So in this international environment where you have the headquarter here and different country subsidiaries and each of them running different platforms, transaction network can actually be that middle ground where all the information can come together. And specifically for the service department for after sales for lifecycle management, it is important that you have all the information from customer related data.

to accounting prices information to specific technical data like technical manuals, drawings, CAD files and so on and get everything together on a machine base. And you guys are able to do that actually.

Gerd Bart (22:25.166)
To make the best service for your customer, we think it's our opinion that you need the master data of all your machines and you need the live data. We really call it live data. have the IoT data, the data what's going on directly now on the machine and bring this, both databases together. Then you have, then you can speed up your service in our opinion.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (22:46.626)
Mm-hmm.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (22:52.311)
Yeah, that's the, no, forgot the counting. I think fourth model, the condition monitoring where you actually collect the performance data of that piece of machinery and use that as a data input for problems for wear and tear and other use cases. At the end, I guess,

Predictive maintenance is the heading for that use case.

Gerd Bart (23:28.666)
It's a big headline because under predictive maintenance stands for us all the next model and this is called that we have a big artificial intelligence directly on the platform and use AI for one thing it's really called in German it's called AI agent I don't know if it's the same name in the US.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (23:49.547)
Emile.

Gerd Bart (23:50.318)
So, and AI agent, use it like chat GPT. You can ask some things and then you get the right answer directly and you get the information what you have to do and you get the information where you stand the next information or where you get your parts and so on. So, typical chat GPT, this works pretty good, but this is of course a small thing. So, in Germany, it's a big, big hype. So, every agency will sell it and very important, but...

I think it's really a small one. What we do with artificial intelligence is directly to make predictive maintenance in the shop floor over 30, 40, 50 machines. And this is very important. And this is very helpful. Directly in combination with condition monitoring, of course. We collect all the data. We make a monitoring. And then we define where are the hotspots of some problems. And then we define.

rules, which is the next process we have to pick up based on these rules. And after this environment, then we go to our AI and tell our AI, on, you have to learn all this process and then we will get better and better in all this process and then we will save and we will reduce.

definitely how to say, we go up in the production time but we reduce the stand-sign, don't

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (25:32.065)
downtime. Yeah, of course, it's and that's the important thing that at the end of the day, what problem do you want to solve? And that is to reduce downtime of the production machinery. And if that production machinery is integrated in a large production line, we have downtime costs of a couple of 10,000

per minute or even higher depending on the processes where it's actually very important to fix a problem. The challenge out there is that on one side, machinery is getting more and more complex. On the other hand, the human side of things, the field service and the maintenance people,

are not growing in the same way as the complexity of the machines. And this creates that big gap. And to my understanding, this big gap can only filled with technology under the umbrella of digitalization. And at the end of the day, this service technician, this maintenance technician needs the information.

of that problem at that location where they are, they need that particular information to solve it and to have that most likely on that device, which they carry anyway with them. I think that's the major goal where then comes the efficiency and the value proposition for having a solution like a transaction network.

Gerd Bart (27:02.647)
Hey you.

Gerd Bart (27:16.116)
you need automated processes and automated process can only be kept and managed by digital tools and digital tools need a platform on there everything is running and this is what we provide for our customer.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (27:24.205)
Mm-hmm.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (27:33.217)
Yeah, and if you go again in the use case of predictive maintenance, if you may know in a Tesla or in a car, you have a lot of wear parts as well. And brake pads are a typical example for a wear part as they go bad over time. In every other car, you get a nasty...

fault message in your cockpit with bing bing bing alarm and you have to do something which everybody of us skip and try to live without as long as it goes and Tesla makes actually a business model out of it as the car itself is already connected to the brain of its user. It books an appointment through the calendar of its user

of course in the next Tesla shop and is then able to do kind of like a Formula One box stop in replacing this wear part while the user enjoys free Wi-Fi and maybe gets a fresh cappuccino while all this work is done. And what is the big value for the end client? It's all about the convenience. can focus or he or she can focus on what's important to them while...

the car and the maintenance is taking care. How do you take this model and apply it in the machine building industry using transaction networks?

Gerd Bart (29:11.83)
I can say it in a very, very easy way because we do exactly the same like Tesla. And the only offering what we do is that the machine builder can reduce his software cost because he can use transaction network and he will save every cost on software development. So this is the basic idea behind our platform. But from the use case part, we exactly do this what you mentioned with Tesla.

Exactly, this is Huskies.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (29:43.241)
and bring their convenience to the end user and getting things taken care of.

Gerd Bart (29:50.378)
If the end user finds every information and has a lot of, I will call helpers or will call chatbots and I will call it artificial intelligence who help him to save money and to save his load on work, this is what makes a happy customer on the end of the day.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (30:13.357)
And then you mentioned actually a company, a machine builder can now invent the wheel themselves and build a platform like this themselves. Of course, on the side while they focus on their real business. And we all know that will most likely take much longer than expected.

and you get your super customized solution which you then also need to service over a very long time which also takes a lot of resources. Or if you go to transaction network way, what are the advantages there?

Gerd Bart (30:54.318)
If you make it by your own, you need between 2 and 4 million euro or 4 million dollar to build up a software like transaction network in this complete specific way. We have a lot of customers who build up in his own way, but after two or three years, they come back to us and say, come on, this was not the right way to develop all by ourselves.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (31:08.749)
Mm-hmm.

Gerd Bart (31:21.474)
We need software as a service solution. We want to reduce our costs on software development. And of course, the most important part is not only the costs, it's also the maintenance of software. So we have a security operations center, for example. We have the SOC type 2 certification. So we have a lot of things around maintain and develop our software.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (31:38.413)
Mm-hmm.

Gerd Bart (31:51.54)
And to have it all by your own, it's very expensive. You need your own software department, need your own security level, you need your own 24-7 support and so on. And this is directly in our company and you have only to pay a small license per month, so a subscription fee. And it's very, I can't promise, it's very cheap.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (32:18.209)
Yeah, that's again where the efficiency comes in. If you have to do everything yourself, there's also no scaling effect. The big thing on transaction network side, you guys develop that thing once, of course further develop it with additional features, but all your members, your clients participate in that and over time...

that software is getting better, better, better, better, better, has additional features, additional functions as in the world of AI, so many things are possible and further developing.

Gerd Bart (32:58.306)
I bring one idea, one use case for a lot of our customers. It's very important that we can make software updates directly on the machine. To build up this function, it's very, very complicated and you need a direct connection between the machine and of course a platform like Transaction Network. Therefore, we have our own Transaction Network box. It's a gateway where we can make all these updates directly on the machine. But now it's

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (33:07.501)
Mm-hmm.

Gerd Bart (33:27.534)
final develop from our side, it's directly in the market, you can buy it from us and you can buy it for everyone in our platform. nobody more has to develop this by himself. it's the easiest and cheapest way to use the service. This is totally the idea of software as a service of course, but this is very important.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (33:44.129)
Yeah, no reinvention of the wheel, which...

Gerd Bart (33:56.692)
in this complicated market and in this complicated process of what is done at machine builds. I will call it a little bit in this way.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (34:10.029)
Looking in the future, specifically on the topic of AI, there's so many new things coming. JetGPT, for example, just improved the picture generation mode and there tons of things out there. How do you see the future of AI?

What future developments do you expect there? What's your point of view in that?

Gerd Bart (34:43.814)
This is really difficult but it's a very interesting question because I must say every week everything is new. Everything comes up with some news information about artificial intelligence. Everything is... You can develop new stuff and everything makes it very, very easier. I remember at myself the first predictive maintenance project it was...

before 10 years ago. There were only rules, there was no artificial intelligence, there was nothing. Of course the project was not very successful because it was not happening. There was something missing, the software stack was missing between the rules, the rules engine and of course the data.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (35:16.941)
Mm-hmm.

Gerd Bart (35:41.036)
What was missing was definitely artificial intelligence. Now we have it directly on our platform. You can use it and we are very successful with this. And if you look now in the future...

I think it will, for us in our platform, everything will be easier. Easier means really we are faster and we have a more clear understanding what's going on in the process directly and we can more help that the machinery goes not broken down in the main time frame so that we have a clear understanding.

One, when is the perfect time of maintenance and when we can make a planned breakdown or planned downtime of the machine. And then we help the service part and we have some manufacturer of all this stuff. And for this, think artificial intelligence will help us. But of course, they also will call us. They will help us on the cell phone.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (36:34.093)
Mm-hmm.

Gerd Bart (36:50.062)
They will give us all information what we have on the right time, to the right place, of course. They will prepare us that something will be broken the next day, of course. So I think it will make our life a little bit easier.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (37:10.999)
So you're the opinion that AI in general is a helper and not a of a danger which takes all our jobs away.

Gerd Bart (37:28.984)
With jobs it's really the same discussion what we have I think 20, 30 years ago. So it's every time the same. If you have every easy going jobs, the basic jobs of course, AI will kill it of course. But this is the idea of artificial intelligence to help us to kill all the stupid jobs that we have time for the more impression jobs, that we have time for the

interesting part of jobs, of course. But I think artificial intelligence will help us more than we will get running in trouble because AI has no motion, for example. We are human and we have motion. If we speak together and something goes wrong here in our discussion, then...

We are angry for example or we are happy or we have love. AI have no love, AI have no emotion and AI will have, in my opinion, will never have some emotion. Everything is mathematic. So everything is calculated, everything is calculated based on one and zero.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (38:28.301)
Mm-hmm.

Gerd Bart (38:50.496)
And therefore, I don't think that we have to go nervous on AI. I think it's really a help for us.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (39:02.583)
Yeah, I have a similar opinion. see technology overall as a way to get better, faster, more efficient and add more value in the work and in the action we provide.

Gerd Bart (39:18.946)
Yeah, absolutely.

Markus Rimmele - DigitalituM (39:23.159)
Very good. We're coming to the end of this podcast episode. Gerd, thank you for joining and sharing your insights about the Transaction Network to our listeners and viewers.

Gerd Bart (39:38.232)
Thanks, Markus, to be here, to your discussion partner on this podcast. It was a funny time for me. So thanks for your having me. Thank you.