Corratec: Strategic networking of high-end bicycle production
Date: 18.05.2026
The industrial starting position and operational hurdles
In the world of premium bicycles, precision is not a luxury, but a necessity. Corratec, a family-run innovation leader, faced a classic Industry 4.0 challenge: on the one hand, the company had a powerful ERP system (Microsoft Dynamics AX) that controlled all business departments and the warehouse. On the other hand, the digital visibility of this system ended precisely at the sensor level of production. Critical system components, such as the electric overhead conveyor, which was based on older Siemens S5 controllers, were technological islands.
In this „before“ state, communication was one-sided and error-prone. The visualization of system statuses was limited to simple light signals on the machines. For the management, this meant a dangerous lack of transparency: downtimes were often only noticed once they had already occurred, and investigating the cause was like a manual search for clues. There was no way to correlate production data with the order data in the ERP system in real time.
The path to technological transformation
The solution was to implement a central industrial data hub that acts as an intermediary between the IT world (ERP/databases) and the OT world (machine control). Initially, the S5 controllers were connected via specialized interfaces, followed later by the seamless migration to modern S7 systems. Instead of individual, rigid programming, a system was chosen that structures data flows flexibly and makes them available for web-based visualization.
Strategic benefits and the „after“ effect
Today, production at Corratec is completely transparent. The management looks at a company in which the digitalization strategy has become a reality.
* Avoidance of production stops: Real-time dashboards identify errors before they lead to a standstill.
* Data-driven decision-making: All business management data is now directly linked to physical production events.
* Future-proof: The architecture is so scalable that it could be easily migrated from S5 to S7, which massively increases the investment protection of the entire system.
