SAP is deepening its collaboration with UnternehmerTUM (UTUM), Europe’s leading center for entrepreneurship and innovation at the Technical University of Munich. One of the most recent developments from this partnership is SafetyGuard, an automated safety inspection prototype that combines artificial intelligence and robotics to detect workplace risks early and help companies comply with safety regulations.

SafetyGuard was created within 12 weeks as part of the Digital Product School, in which teams of selected students work on real challenges, and was developed by the MIDAS student team together with the SAP Research & Innovation Team. The project illustrates how cross-location collaboration with the ecosystem can quickly create a prototype that provides concrete inspiration for product development at SAP.

Embodied AI as a common focus of innovation

The aim of the project was to identify use cases in which robotics and AI can be seamlessly integrated into business processes. Based on research and user studies, the MIDAS team recognized the reliable detection and documentation of security risks as a promising use case.

Security checks are indispensable in many industries – but are often time-consuming and error-prone. This is exactly where SafetyGuard comes in: With AI and autonomous robots (embodied AI), inspections become more efficient, faster and more reliable – without any additional burden on employees.

Embodied AI – the intelligent connection of AI with physical robot systems – is a central future field for SAP.

Technologically, SafetyGuard is based on modular robotics and AI-supported autonomy. Robots, such as drones or humanoid systems, can independently check work areas. For example, a specialized AI model detects missing protective equipment and automatically documents safety-relevant incidents. Inspections can be carried out in parallel with other tasks such as material handling or asset monitoring – an approach that combines efficiency gains with higher levels of safety.

“SafetyGuard shows how effective our ecosystem approach is: An SAP team from Potsdam and a team of students from Munich worked together in a very short time to develop a prototype that influences real product developments,” says Tobias Riasanow, Head of Ecosystem Development at SAP Labs Germany. “This is exactly how we understand ecosystem development at SAP.”

The project is also strategically relevant for SAP. SafetyGuard addresses real industrial requirements and complements existing solutions in the area of ​​Environment, Health & Safety Management. In the future, the approach could be incorporated into the SAP portfolio and thus further shorten the path from idea to product.

Programs that have an impact

13 prototypes for SAP have now been created in UTUM’s programs – all in close collaboration with SAP product areas and with direct reference to the respective roadmaps.

• Innovation Sprint: Students work on prototypes for specific questions within a week. At the last sprint on the topic“Future of Retail with SAP Joule” Five such prototypes were created, including solutions for intelligent inventory optimization, virtual shelf controls and assistance systems for retail.
• Digital Product School: Students develop executable software prototypes over twelve weeks. One example is Carbon Data Exchange, a feature that is now part of the SAP Sustainability Control Tower. Another example is an application that makes it easier for developers to access the extensive SAP Field Service Management documentation. Instead of spending a lot of time researching, they can direct their questions to a chatbot and receive appropriate answers including code examples and references to the relevant documentation locations.
• Multi-stakeholder projects: Further prototypes were created in longer-term programs such as the Digital Hub Mobility or the Circular Republic. These programs bring companies, startups and research institutions together over several months and enable SAP to test innovations in real customer and partner environments at an early stage.

Fast results through co-innovation

The collaboration between SAP and UTUM shows how quickly ideas can turn into tangible results. Students, researchers and SAP teams work closely together and combine scientific approaches with concrete industrial challenges. SafetyGuard is an example of how innovation occurs in the field of Embodied AI and how different disciplines benefit from each other.

“SafetyGuard demonstrates the extensibility of SAP’s approach to Embodied AI. SAP’s Embodied AI layer integrates business context and triggers actions across the entire suite. The AI-native, vendor-agnostic design is scalable across different use cases and enables multitasking, such as when robots handle safety incidents while also performing other tasks such as asset inspections. SafetyGuard serves as a proof point for SAP of the added value of using cognitive robotics in safety applications.”

Adelya Fatykhova and Dr. Łukasz Ostrowski, initiators and supervisors of the challenge for students