PASSPORT TO INNOVATION A conversation with Editor in Chief Brett Brune
Industrie 4.0, as seen from ground zero
Detlef, we know that Industrie 4.0 was invented in
your lab. What was it like to build the first multivendor automation line in the Industrie 4.0 paradigm, at Smart- Factory-KL, back in 2005? Long before the phrase “Industrie 4.0” was invented, we
started back in 2004 with the first discussions with indus- trial players, because we thought that with so many smart homes emerging, there would also be a need for smart fac- tories. We spoke with about 12 mostly regional industrial companies, and they promised to support our idea. That led to the foundation of the SmartFactory-KL Association, in 2005. It’s a membership-driven association. When we started, it was clear to us that it made no
sense to just have a laptop and talk about IT things. We also needed machines to develop a concept for what this smart world will look like in a factory environment. This is why we set up our first demonstrator line, producing something real. There’s always a product which we manu- facture on our systems. We need this test bed to experi- ment with and to demonstrate and learn what the technol- ogy of the future will look like in factories.
SmartFactory-KL has more than 45 members, includ-
ing Cisco, IMB, SAP, John Deere and Johnson Controls in the US. Where would you say the US is compared with nations with which it’s competing on the reconfigurable / flexible manufacturing fronts? The US entered this process quite late, about five years
ago. But since then, its activities have been really great, especially with the programs initiated by the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation, now called Manu- facturing USA. Today, we also have the Digital Manufactur- ing and Design Innovation Institute and the Smart Manu- facturing Innovation Institute, which are powerful forces for bringing these topics forward. On the other hand, US activities have always been driven more from the IT side— and less from the manufacturing side. I think this is due to the fact that manufacturing in the US decreased over many years—and it was only in the about last five years, it was recognized that manufacturing will come back and you have to support these developments. So it’s very nice to see how activities in this field are increasing in the US and that they are really supported by the government.
In addition to Germany and the US, what nations do
you believe will lead this manufacturing market segment a decade from now, and why? That’s very hard to say. Germany has always been
strong in manufacturing—even when manufacturing was going down in the US and Great Britain. I think for now, we in Germany will remain a leader in this field—in produc- tion technologies. But on the other hand, manufacturing is driven more and more by advancements in IT, and this IT progress is very deeply driven from the US. So, this is a wonderful situation—where both nations can learn from each other and can bring many of these things forward together. This is the good news. On the other side, we have to recognize that there are
other nations, especially in Asia, to pay attention to. First of all, there is Japan, which was always a direct competitor in factory automation with Germany. Unfortunately, due to problems it had with the tsunami a couple of years ago, they were pretty late in bringing these things forward. But Japan is now starting to set up a lot of activities. Finally, we should not overlook China. China is put- ting the most money into this bucket. China has learned that their business model of just offering cheap labor to the world market will not work in the long term. They also want to become a world leader in factory automation and high-tech production.
I understand SmartFactory-KL’s Industrie 4.0 dem-
onstrator now involves modules from many different companies, including Festo and Bosch Rexroth, and that they can be interchanged within the factory—without interrupting production. Is this factory now engaged in reconfigurable manufacturing? If so, how is it different from flexible manufacturing? You surely can say that our factory is based on recon-
figurable manufacturing. It’s strictly different from flexible manufacturing. We have had flexible machinery for de- cades: We have flexible systems in automotive manufactur- ing, for example. But these systems are characterized by having just one line of existing machines—mostly from just one manufacturer. They are able to show some flexibility, in terms of having very similar products but perhaps a choice between 12 different kinds that they can manufacture.
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Detlef Zühlke Scientific Director for Innovative
Factory Systems, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence.
Executive Chairman, SmartFactory-KL Podcast:
http://tinyurl.com/hwecmgm
March 2017
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