Smart Factory Summit 2021: my personal review and classification

Richard Habering | 1. October 2021

How do OEMs and automotive suppliers network their production plants? What can SMEs, especially the mechanical engineering sector, do to make their manufacturing smart and efficient? What role do the suppliers play? How can artificial intelligence help make production smarter?

These and other questions were presented this week at the Smart Factory Summit of the Deutsche Messe Technology Academy and explained by numerous expert speakers. Among the select field of participants were the companies KUKA, SEW Eurodrive, Siemens, Yaskawa and also us from igus.

The digital platforms and communication systems needed for an intelligent manufacturing industry were also highlighted. Because with the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), it is also necessary to network logistics processes and administrative data with production machines. In addition, the sub-areas that can be made smart, such as condition/process monitoring & predictive maintenance, were highlighted and interfaces for the smart factory were presented.

Why wait? Eliminate unplanned downtimes with ready-to-install predictive maintenance solutions from igus® smart plastics

This is exactly where I am with my lecture, “Why wait? Eliminate unplanned downtime with ready-to-install predictive maintenance solutions from igus® smart plastics. In a live podcast from our in-house igus trade show stand in Cologne, I spoke in a very practical way about our smart plastics products for predictive maintenance, which are waiting for the market launch and showed some highlights from projects that have already been implemented. You can watch it here again in full length, also with English translation (my presentation starts approx. from 04:10:00 of the recording):

Despite the fact that not all elements of my performance worked out perfectly, as can happen in live performances, I am still happy about the “hands-on” tone of my presentation. That is what sets us apart at igus – smart plastics We roll up our sleeves and get things done. We also develop innovative concepts such as predictive maintenance together with our customers. This enables us to continuously develop ourselves and our ready-to-install products and we can already look back on over 2000 smart plastics projects. A few impressions of this can be found in my lecture or can be read at leisure here . And if you would like more information about smart plastics, please visit our homepage: https://www.igus.eu/info/predictive-maintenance-smart-plastics. There, all the technologies for condition monitoring and predictive maintenance mentioned in the presentation are described again in detail.

From new use cases to new product areas and new business models

Even if there are many buzzwords, for me personally, I still take away some worthwhile impressions from the other presentations. Especially the thoughts about consumption-oriented revenue models, which are extremely exciting for our networked products for motion – so to speak “smart motion plastics”. Here, it will probably be possible to deliver completely new offers and services to the people involved in maintenance and machine servicing. But whether it is “Power-by-the-hour”, “Pay-per-use” or “Energy-as-a-service” … as always, we will first think of the customer and their daily challenges first.