5th International Smart Factory Summit

Inspiring sessions at the Smart Factory Summit, in Biel, Switzerland June 12-14 2024, hosted by Switzerland Innovation and Swiss Smart Factory with representatives >15 countries coming from 5 continents. Here's a brief summary of the main sessions and highly knowledgeable speakers, discussing how to help the global manufacturing community adapt future technologies for a sustainable future:

Welcoming addresses

Introductions were given by Dr. Dominic Gorecky of the Swiss Smart Factory , Ciyong ZOU of UNIDO , and Virve Resta from the Office of Economic Affairs of the Canton of Bern

Keynote World Economic Forum - Kyriakos Triantafyllidis

• Advanced Manufacturing & Supply Chain - is 1 of the 10 WEF centres; its purpose is for businesses, governments, and civil society to work together to find common solutions and take decisive action in driving transformation within the global manufacturing & supply-chain community
• Global changes are impacting manufacturing; requiring redesign/reconfiguration global value chains…
• Global survey just performed reveals big delta between intent and reality for Digital Transformation in Industry
• Global lighthouse network program of reference Smart Factories started in 2018, now reached 153 lighthouse factories. Latest interesting figures: 38% of them in China, only 7% in N.America
• 700+ use-cases already and growing
• Factories often willing to share learnings/successes of their transformation

International Centre for Industrial Transformation (INCIT) "The Journey Towards a Smart Factory"- Raimund Klein

• INCIT enables comparison of Digital Transformation in Manufacturing based on Continent, MNC vs SME, Industry-sector
• Based on SIRI Index (Smart? Industry Readiness Index) with measures across 16 dimensions in Process, Technology, and Organizational domains
• Automation PLUS Transparency = big drivers for Industry4.0
• Data to facilitate decision making and funding for Governments, Industries and individual Companies or even Production-site level; through benchmarking against best-in-class or broad-middle adopters
• Also COSIRI Index (Consumer Sustainability Industry Readiness Index)
• Conclusion- MNCs are ahead on digital maturity/transformation, but will be held back if SMEs don’t get the support needed to drive digital transformation, as they are the backbone of MNC's supply-chains…

西门子 "Manufacturing X-Crafting Global Value Networks for Tomorrow"- Dominik Rohrmus CTO Lab Network I4.0

• LNI (Lab Network Industrie 4.0) setup in Germany to promote testing and knowledge transfer Industry 4.0 amongst SMEs? and now internationally through network of labs
• International Manufacturing-X: focuses on setting up industrial data sector- specific ecosystems (e.g. Catena-X was developed already for automotive).
• Digital Product Passport - e.g. 4 owners of a complex metalworking machine over 50 years - all registered on DPP through Asset Administration Shell. E-vehicle batteries will be given 2nd life through battery digital-twin
• Factory X use-cases - must be customer driven (not technology driven)- always put customer's needs 1st to ensure traction

SMART FACTORIES PANEL:

• How to help SMEs in their transitions to Smart Factories; why is this needed… and how this links to UN's Sustainable Development Goals

?"TOGETHER BUILDING A BETTER FUTURE" -parallel working session moderated by Prof Dr. David Romero ,Mexico

3 groups worked on frameworks for Smart Manufacturing, around 3 dimensions-

• Socially sustainable (balancing political, commercial and personal interests)
• Environmentally sustainable (regenerative design at center of people, ecology and carbon footprint)
• Economically sustainable (new business models, restructured value-chains and manufacturing approaches such as micro-factories)

SMART FACTORY INTERNATIONAL INITIATIVES - 5 min pitches

• Inspiring elevator pitches from: Brazil, Croatia, Greece, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Morocco, Malaysia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, UAE
• Many great ideas shared incl. 3D printing spare parts for critical components in Indian refineries & private 5G networks in remote refineries; Intelligent automation and collaborative robotics lab in Mexico with broad partner testbed; Controlling robots through VR headsets in Kenya; human resources driven focus for Smart Factories in Malaysia (upskilling 1000 individuals on Smart Factory competencies) + many more…

UNIDO (UN Industrial Development Organization) Smart Factory Guidelines

Dr Rafik Feki (UNIDO) & Prof Dr Prof. Dr. Mbang Sama presented Smart Factory Guidelines just published… How and why to establish Smart Factories: (e.g. Manufacturing Testbeds, Product & Process Innovation, Skills & Training, Incubation & Acceleration)

Almer Technologies "How I reinvented Augmented Reality" - Sebastian Beetschen CEO

• Moving from hype (Google Glasses) to reality - ensuring customer usability is always top priority
• Focus on doing 1 thing really well - reality 1st, digital 2nd. The ultimate test: "even my grandma could use it"
• Machine builders see potential for smarter maintenance processes of their machine installed fleets

达索系统 -"Beyond Automation: Harnessing the Power of Virtual Twins for Industry Transformation" Christian Haltiner MD Switzerland

• Dassault Systèmes are supporting sustainability goals, through virtual (digital) twins - avoiding need for physical prototypes in new product development
• Dassault Systèmes invented 3D modelling and now drives virtual twins across all scientific domains, incl. modelling of machines, nature and humans - all inter-relating & linked to circular economy

Detecon Schweiz "Twin Transformation - the Co-existance of Digital & Sustainability Transformation" - Martin Schiesser

• Sees manufacturing having 2 parallel objectives (Digitalization and Sustainability) - both interlinked and should support each other, both needing data
• Measurement is key - uses SIRI Smart Industry Readiness Index assessment
• Proper data strategy linked to company strategy, and IIoT platform to connect all assets can? improve OEE 25%, reduce waste 60% and fully connected plants can drive sustainability savings 90%!

WorldSkills International Skill "Industry 4.0" - Sasa Simovic

• Promoting skillsets for Industry 4.0 amongst school leavers/apprentices, helping countries to ensure a sufficient pipeline of skilled people into manufacturing
• Annual competition between countries to encourage learning - topics such as MES, BigData, Smart Devices, Digital Twin… amongst 30 + topics

SmarterChains Empowering Industry 4.0 - Vasilis Karamalegos

• Presented an online platform that enables manufacturers to evaluate their potential cost savings and business value from digital transformations with initial results within a few hours
• SmarterChains provide a rapid assessment of savings and use-cases, helping build solid business cases for digital transformations to convince management boards of investments needed on company or even country-level

"Next level economic support" - Parallel working session moderated by Dr Mathias Schmitt

• Identification of key drivers and initiatives needed to promote digitalization in SMEs and Startups. Great ideas raised to help accelerate progress on country level

Synature AG "Biodiversity meets smart factory" - Olivier St?hli CEO

• Great presentation of use of IoT technologies to monitor natural ecosystems, through sound! Really impressive & imaginative use-cases that can solve real-world problems via acoustic signal decoding and machine learning to detect animals at distance

Posalux Company & factory site visit - Rene Ronchetti CEO

• Great presentation and visit hosted by Posalux's CEO
• Impressive high-precision micro-machining-tools for specific manufacturing applications such as drilling very precise holes (<0.2mm) in metal components for automotive sector

Many thanks to the event organisers, speakers and participants, for a highly engaging event!

Peter Angelos