Volkswagen counts on digital pens from Anoto

Anoto’s partner, aibis, supports car manufacturer in a survey of 3,000 staff and distribution partners

What used to take weeks is now accomplished in just minutes: Wolfsburg-based Volkswagen group has succeeded in reducing the time it takes to evaluate collected data from an internal survey by using digital pens from Anoto (www.anoto.com). As a component within SkaiForms, a forms solution developed by Anoto’s partner aibis, the pens enable hand written information to be processed digitally while the survey participants are filling out the forms. In the past, the evaluation of the survey data used to take weeks. Now, Volkswagen can assess the results immediately after the data collection. This underscores the massive increase in efficiency made possible by Anoto’s pens and its underlying Digital Pen & Paper (DPP) technology.

450,000 questions evaluated in minutes

Once a year, around 3,000 Volkswagen-group sales staff and employees convene in Wolfsburg at a 3-day Open Day event to learn about new developments in the car manufacturer’s product portfolio, and to provide feedback on those developments. The feedback received is extremely important for Volkswagen because it influences the future evolvement and expansion of the vehicle series and technologies. With attendees from all over the world visiting this event, and with it being the only occasion when they meet in this constellation, it is all the more important for the survey and evaluation of the results to be conducted during the meeting, and for the general sentiment to be established as soon as possible. A total of 3,000 questionnaires, each with 150 questions, translate into an evaluation of almost half a million responses.

SkaiForms from aibis has proven to be the optimal solution for Volkswagen: the application employs Anoto’s Digital Pen & Paper Technology (DPP), enabling the company to design its own questionnaires, which are completed by the attendees at the Open Day event, using digital pens. It is therefore important that the digital pens resemble conventional pens and that no special or introductory training is required. Only upon closer inspection, however, does the showstopper become apparent: a camera integrated into the pen registers movement across a pattern of dots printed onto the form and converts the handwritten information into digital data.

SkaiForms: Getting answers to questions

In groups of approximately 300 persons, each participant is provided with a questionnaire and a digital pen in order to answer the 150 questions. Once the form has been completed, the data stored in the pen is exported via an USB port, freeing up the hardware for the next group of participants in literally seconds. The exported data is transmitted to

aibis’s SkaiForms server where it is instantly converted into Excel spreadsheets and immediately presentable PowerPoint presentations and made available to Volkswagen’s decision makers. The solution thus gives Volkswagen almost immediate insight into the participants’ assessments and opinions of the innovations presented at the Open Day event - in just a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost of a manual evaluation.

Volkswagen product marketing colleague, Benjamin Saß, is an enthusiastic proponent of the solution: “The annual Open Day is an important event for our product and portfolio planning. The attendees come from every corner of the globe, and when so much expertise and experience convene, we naturally want to assemble as much feedback and appraisal as possible regarding our new developments and presentations. Time is the key factor here: with the 3,000 participants staying just a few days in Wolfsburg, they too want to know what the underlying opinion is before they return home. SkaiForms and Anoto pens allow our opinion polls to be evaluated almost in real time. Whereas before, several colleagues used to be occupied for several days with evaluating the information, we now have the result in a few minutes.”

The standard for digital data processing

Anoto’s DPP technology has established itself as the de-facto industry standard for digitally processing handwritten forms and has become the fastest, simplest, most cost-effective and error free method of data entry. Numerous partners in Germany already offer DPP-based solutions for use in document management systems and have developed a wide range of industry-specific applications.

About Anoto Group AB

Anoto Group is the company behind and world leading in the unique technology for digital pen and paper, which enables fast and reliable transmission of handwritten text into a digital format. Anoto operates through a global partner network that focuses on user-friendly forms solutions for efficient capture, transmission and storage of data within different business segments, e.g. healthcare, bank and finance, transport and logistics and education. The Anoto Group has around 100 employees, offices in Lund (head office), Boston and Tokyo. Among the major shareholders are Norden Technology A/S, Robur and SEB. The Anoto share is traded on the Small Cap list of the OMX Nordic Exchange in Stockholm under the ticker ANOT. For more information: www.anoto.com

About aibis Informationssysteme Potsdam GmbH

aibis Informationssysteme GmbH is a specialist for mobile enterprise processing. aibis creates individual concepts and proposals and intergrates mature and efficient technologies into the business processes of enterprises and corporations. The experts of aibis develop, install, monitor and support mobile solutions for clients in the fields of production, logistics, service delivery and commerce. Among the selected main features of aibis´ solutions the digital pen is a vital component with its digitalization and transmission of hand written data. In addition, the usage of transponder and barcode systems in mobile devices is also a business field for professional user. www.aibis.com