Skilled trades 4.0: Virtualization with Minerva

With Minerva, skilled trades 4.0 is gaining a research and testing platform for virtualized services. The joint project is a response to high capacity utilization, a shortage of skilled workers, and long waiting times in many trades.

Minerva decouples parts of service provision from location and time. To this end, the project combines a central service platform, augmented reality tools, and AI chatbots. Small and medium-sized craft businesses are testing virtual consulting, problem diagnosis, minor repairs, and cross-trade planning meetings.

Minerva addresses structural bottlenecks in many skilled trades. High capacity utilization, declining training numbers, a shortage of skilled workers, and long travel distances lead to waiting times and small orders going unserved. The project goal is to virtualize selected services and make them more flexible in terms of space and time. Consulting, problem analysis, order planning, and instruction for manageable tasks can be carried out without the physical presence of skilled workers. A central service platform connects customers, trades businesses, AI chatbots, and AR tools. This enables businesses to reduce travel times, use scarce expertise more efficiently, and increase service availability.

At the same time, virtualization opens up new services, service levels, and business models that local businesses operate themselves. The consortium specifically uses low-cost, low-threshold technologies such as low-cost AR glasses and customizable chatbots. The application partners cover customer groups such as housing associations, property developers, architects, and private households. Another goal is to promote employment-friendly work concepts, such as the use of older or health-impaired skilled workers in remote consulting roles.

• Workshops to identify application scenarios, requirements, and acceptance criteria in various trades.
• Supported testing of AR and chatbot prototypes in real-world everyday operations.
• Establishment of a test user pool with employees and customers of craft businesses.
• Support in the development of viable business and operating models.
• Transfer to networks of chambers of crafts, trade associations, and SME 4.0 centers.

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“In the Minerva project, we are working with our craft trade partners to investigate which parts of services can be virtualized using augmented reality and AI chatbots, enabling companies to make their services more flexible in terms of space and time while at the same time establishing new, fair business and operating models in the craft trade.”
Michael Lücke, Minerva project manager, conducts research on skilled trades 4.0 at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML.

Minerva achieves virtualization through the interaction of specialized technical components. A central service platform collects data from end devices, AR applications, and chatbots, distributes information to the components involved, and stores relevant processes. AR-based tools support remote consulting, virtual teams, and instructions for minor repairs. Voice-controlled chatbots with NLU structure customer concerns, provide knowledge, and relieve the burden on skilled workers.

Chatbot development draws on experience from more than 150 productive solutions in industries such as banking, retail, HR, and IT communications. The platform uses processes and data models from the Athene 4.0 service platform. This creates a continuous flow of information from customer inquiries to planning, risk assessment, execution, and billing. Iterative development cycles with four stages enable early practical testing. In the fourth iteration, the integrated solution is being tested in at least five other companies.

Craft businesses from the electrical, painting, bathroom, and building services sectors are validating its functionality, usability, and acceptance in real-world use. On this basis, craft-driven business and operator models for virtualized services are being developed. An established IT service provider for the skilled trades contributes experience in supporting all chambers of skilled trades and in operating digital services such as apprenticeship and tradesman radar.

• Participation in the test user pool for virtual services in the participating trades.
• Participation in workshops, development workshops, and the project committee.
• Involvement in events organized by chambers of crafts, trade associations, and SME 4.0 competence centers.
• Use of project results in consulting, training, and internal digitization strategies.

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In the virtual consulting scenario, Minerva replaces many on-site appointments. End customers report their needs via the platform or chatbot. The chatbot asks structured questions and collects images and basic data about the object. Based on this, the skilled trades business plans an AR-supported consulting session.

During the session, the specialist connects to the customer via augmented reality. Both see the same environment, mark areas, vary equipment and colors, and discuss options. The platform documents decisions and transfers them to existing industry software.

The solution builds on experience from Athene 4.0 regarding the digital consistency of a customer order. Order data flows directly from the consultation into resource planning, risk assessment, reporting, and billing.

Benefits for businesses and customers:

• Noticeable reduction in travel for consulting services.
• Faster appointment scheduling thanks to flexible time slots.
• Better customer involvement in planning through co-creation.
• Involvement of older specialists in consulting roles from the office.

With virtual problem diagnosis, Minerva replaces many on-site visits. Customers describe malfunctions in systems or devices via chatbot dialogs. The chatbot guides them through structured questions, requests images or short videos, and assigns the issue to a trade.

Optionally, the company can use existing sensor data from the system. Specialists access this data via the platform and receive additional measurements. AR applications support the view of the customer's environment, marking relevant components and hazardous areas.

The technician uses the information to generate a structured report. Craft businesses derive material requirements, time requirements, and qualification requirements from this. This data flows into resource planning and quotation preparation.

Advantages of virtual problem diagnosis:

• Shortened processes and greater effectiveness in order planning.
• Targeted use of plant sensors to support diagnosis.
• Better preparation for assignments thanks to structured advance information.
• Option of purely remote services if no travel is necessary.

Minerva supports customers with virtual instructions for minor repairs. Typical examples include fault reports for household appliances or simple operating errors. Instead of waiting a long time for an appointment, the customer starts an AR session with the company via the platform. The specialist sees the work area through the smartphone camera, displays markings, and explains the steps to fix the problem.

Standard cases are handled by a chatbot. It guides the customer through the test steps, gives recommendations for action, and documents the result. Only in more complex cases does the company connect a specialist live.

For large-scale construction projects, the company often needs several trades. Minerva enables virtual teams in which representatives from different companies connect to a construction site via an AR session. All participants see the same image, mark collisions, coordinate installations and cable routing, and generate project plans or parts lists from the results.

Benefits of these scenarios:

• Reduction of fixed costs such as travel for minor repairs.
• Fast help for customers even when companies are busy.
• Integration of specialists who can no longer be deployed on site into remote support.
• Better coordination between trades through joint virtual planning.

Minerva anchors digitalization in the skilled trades in an overall socio-technical concept. The partners combine research on augmented reality in the skilled trades, AI in the skilled trades, and platform economics. Preliminary work from “Athene 4.0” provides digital process models, data structures, and experience with service platforms for small businesses. “ARBAY” contributes insights on remote consulting, social presence in mixed reality, and avatars.

Until now, many funding projects have focused on AR and VR in skilled trades for the provision of information or training; Minerva expands this focus to include virtualized services. Chatbots are not yet widely used in skilled trades; Minerva uses existing best practices and cost-benefit analyses to ensure successful implementation. The project partners are using this to develop training concepts, acceptance criteria, and evaluation methods for virtual services.

In the field of digital construction processes, which include concepts such as urban land-use planning and digital construction files, the project is demonstrating connectable concepts for skilled trade platform models. The results are reaching many businesses via multiplier networks of chambers of skilled trades, trade associations, the SME 4.0 Competence Center, and Digital Hub Logistics. The formative evaluation includes at least ten skilled tradespeople and twenty customers. The summative phase involves at least twenty employees and forty customers. A project committee consisting of chambers of crafts and trade associations meets two to three times a year to reflect on the results. Based on around one million craft businesses with an average of seven employees, the project estimates a sales potential of around 60 million euros per year with low market penetration.