The revolutionary new product CORE - Customer Oriented REvolution - from the UNITED GRINDING Group convinced the expert jury of the UX Design Awards. She was honored with the "Special Mention" award for outstanding user and customer experience.
The UNITED GRINDING Group, one of the world's leading manufacturers of precision machines for grinding, eroding, laser cutting, measuring and combination machining, has created a milestone in the operation of machine tools with CORE. This confirms the decision of the jury of the UX Design Awards 2022, which honored the innovative machine interaction concept for its outstanding user and customer experience.
Awarded with «Special Mention»
The UX Design Awards is the global competition for outstanding experiences, presented by the International Design Center Berlin (IDZ). In the "Product" category, CORE was honored with the "Special Mention" award, with which the jury emphasizes special individual qualities of nominated projects. In his assessment, jury member Tapani Jokinen emphasized the appealing design and the simple and intuitive usability: »The functionality of CORE corresponds perfectly to the physical form, and the product is a clear UX improvement for the future generation of machine operators. The multi-touch interface is easy to learn and can be used in a similar way to a touchscreen or tablet. The design is timeless, the physical buttons are reduced to a minimum, and all operation is concentrated on the dashboard screen.« Tapani Jokinen is Design Consultant, Strategic & Ecodesign Contractor at Fraunhofer IZM and owner of TJ-Design, a creative consultancy that combines strategic innovation and design with sustainability and ethical business behavior. to achieve positive developments on a global level. He has been a member of the jury for the UX Design Awards since April 2021.
The goal was to add value to the user experience
The award encourages Christoph Plüss, CTO of the UNITED GRINDING Group, and his team in their work. When developing CORE, they clearly had the goal of creating intuitive and forward-looking operation. «It was important to us that the new operation appealed to all generations of users. We have therefore based ourselves on the operating concepts that are widespread in consumer electronics today and with which practically everyone is familiar from everyday life. For the new CORE panel, we decided to use a 24-inch multi-touch screen that can be operated like a smartphone using "touch" and "swipe". We have largely dispensed with buttons. And the interface is also based on the app overview of a smartphone, with self-explanatory icons that can be individually adjusted.»
The focus during development was not only on the design and ease of use, but also on new technical features that make it easier for users to work on the machines. "These include, for example, the built-in front camera, which allows video calls with our customer care team directly on the panel, or the chat function," says Plüss. “But also easy access via RFID chips with a stored role profile. Or the possibility of using the UNITED GRINDING Digital Solutions TM products, such as Remote Service, Service Monitor or Production Monitor, directly on the panel.»
Into the future with enthusiasm
CORE is only just beginning with the technical possibilities that result from the fundamentally newly developed hardware and software architecture. "The award shows us that we are on the right track - and we will now continue on this path with determination and motivation," promises Plüss. "Because only with a convincing user experience can a product demonstrate its technical superiority and generate real added value for the customer."
Developments will continue not only in the area of user experience, but also in the second major development goal of CORE, to advance and actively shape the digital future. CORE already ensures the exchange of data between people, machines and the production environment and creates the basis for the operation of modern IoT applications. And we can look forward to further innovations in this area as well.