Nestlé Competence Center: The Future Work and Meeting Space

Nestlé’s new communication building in Frankfurt is chock-full of sophisticated AV concepts, thanks to design and planning work by macom.

CI Staff
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Nestlé is using its new competence center in Frankfurt, Germany, to demonstrate how such processes can be customized and made more efficient, especially with the right technology.

One of the world’s biggest producers of food and beverages, Nestlé now has a headquarters that shows off its areas of expertise, with a focus on food, nutrition and consumer behavior.

The vision was “to create an interactive communication platform revolving around future needs,” according to company officials.

Photo Gallery: Inside the Nestlé Competence Center

The competence center was built with an eye toward having “an interactive, futuristic communication platform that really engages visitors, giving them the chance to discover the Nestlé brand and find out more about the company’s extensive know-how by speaking to them on an emotional and intellectual level,” according to a press release about the new facility.

The new 16,150-square-foot building spans three floors and provides the company with a knowledge platform for employees, customers, and business partners to find out more about the values held by Nestlé and its specific areas of expertise.

The ground floor features a gift shop, the third floor has fully adaptable conference rooms and the second floor offers the main multi-channel communication area, where people can try to come up with the company’s next big idea.

Nestlé brought in macom to design and plan its new competence center, which includes several adaptable multimedia experiences. Heller Design in Stuttgart planned the integrated layout of the facility.

The projection technology, displays and control systems in the center’s conference rooms were designed to be “as adaptable as possible” to accommodate almost any situation. Most of the hardware required media control units, which are now on all stories. Almost all areas of the center also feature vertical and horizontal multi-touch displays.

Interactive Areas

The multi-communication area on the second floor is the building’s centerpiece. Thanks to the multisensory concept in this space, it offers several digital technologies that invite interactive collaboration. It’s an ideal place to develop and document topics in workshops, customer presentations and exhibits, then integrate these in shared processes.

The area can also be used for larger events involving up to 220 people, making it ideal for press conferences and conventions. Visitors can also rent the top floor for their events.

The room includes three large mobile media units with 50-inch touchscreens, complete with audio systems in both front and back that were designed with adaptability in mind, and a 162-square-foot touchscreen, or “power wall.”

This is complemented by a double-screen wall with fold-down whiteboard elements on both sides, as well as a giant projector, a projection screen and audio equipment that can be positioned throughout the room.

Interactive Presentation

One fundamental aspect of all of the interactive exhibits at the Nestlé Competence Center – and a feature that is pivotal to the entire software concept in the building – is an intuitive and interactive presentation system. It comes with a high-end content management system.

The aim of the multi-touch-compatible software used in the system is to provide users with a made-to-measure presentation and working environment as part of what has been coined the Future Work and Meeting Space.

The CMS platform includes video content, PDF files, texts, hyperlinks, images and PowerPoint presentations from across the company, which are fully editable and distributed via the network through a client server.

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