What is special about it is that Krones.digital is not a department in the usual sense of the word but a community consisting at present of roughly 450 experts, all of whom work for the Krones Group yet come from a wide range of specialisms, from different companies and different continents. The unit thus forms a matrix organization within the group structure. The matrix design ensures open communication between all the experts involved, transcending global specialisms and company borders, and facilitates brainstorming and cooperation along the entire value chain, from product development and project management right through to supporting customers in their day-to-day business. The experts all across the globe use the same technologies for this and are establishing a shared tech stack. That is how Krones devises the digitalization process for production operations across four levels – starting with the machine, then line control, a central Cloud platform with digital services, right through to the SAP platform wher the Krones Group offers further applications designed to control digital beverage plants.

To sum up: Krones’ new unit deploys a flexible, fast-response crew with a broad range of specialisms, whose members work together in pursuit of a single mission: to lead the food and beverage industries into a digital future. The community sees its role as designing an efficient, sustainable beverage production operation “managed by Krones” that will enable customers to focus on their own business activities. 

This type of cooperation in a cross-specialism organizational unit is new to Krones. But having established and consolidated it over recent months, Krones is now moving on to the next step and is looking to hire new employees with digital expertise. “We set great store by a pleasant working environment and a certain team spirit – with open, straightforward cooperation, direct communication channels and streamlined decision-making being our top priorities. We have fostered this team culture over recent weeks and months and are now looking forward to seeing Krones.digital grow with its new faces,” explains Severin Diepold, Head of the Corporate Digitalization and Automation subsection within Krones.digital.