My Digitalization Journey
Ulf Stalmach
Coating Companies Catalyst to Digital Transformation at ORONTEC GmbH & Co. KG; Co-founder of the Smart Paint Factory Alliance
Last week I was surprised by a lot of congratulations for my two-year work anniversary in the Smart Paint Factory Alliance e.V. (SPFA). Honestly, I did not have this date on my radar – it was a nice surprise!
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What does this anniversary mean to me?
A lot, obviously: for one, that we officially started our mission to push digitalization two years ago.
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Why?
Seeing that in order to learn from data, closed loops are necessary – but data is not shared in the Coatings Industry, hence no feedback, thus no learning. Which definitely does not suit my nature!
I was educated to work out structure-property relationships during my Ph.D. studies to be able to predict results from these – and was completely lost when entering the Coatings Industry, as the first lesson I was taught was “Ulf, don’t ask us “why” all the time – we do not know! We know it works, and that is good enough!”. OK, so no predictions in Coatings, just plain Trial&Error all day long? Arrgh...
Years later, when I was engulfed in a purchasing project and was asked to set up a controlling system for raw materials within our group of companies, I had to lay my hands on all the technical datasheets of the raw materials to see if they are identical, comparable or completely different to the others already in the database. So here was the tool to establish the structure – why not connect that to the properties collected in the R&D labs? Correlate purchasing data and possibilities with the results in the labs? This was my intro to digitalization (at a time when it wasn’t called that way yet…).
Starting at ORONTEC GmbH & Co. KG , I suddenly had the opposite: the sources of data, but no structure to correlate it to. And with all the digital tools stating to come to live, the potential became ever clearer – yet “we do not share data” popped up again as the road block.
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Then what?
As we saw with ORONTEC GmbH & Co. KG , you can improve the processes within a paint producing company using data all right, but when you try establishing closed loop systems to be able to use the data for learning processes (e.g. with a digital twin), you end up in a cul-de-sac: there is no response as to how the products perform at the client other than if it results in a claim!
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The same goes for the raw material suppliers as well, but in this case, it is a double-sided process: they also do not readily provide data for the products either!
Conclusion: if there is no data sharing, there is no “real” digitalization? That did not (and still does not) sound like an option, hence getting the industry into doing so was the next big goal. And it would have to comprise more than one player in the value chain – and more specialists that have the same problem to deliver added value to the coatings industry through digitalization.
So – Ta-Daaaaa – the idea of creating an alliance of like minded was born, the Smart Paint Factory Alliance. We put our heads together in earnest in November 2021 on how to tackle this problem, and organized the first Workference in March 2022 in Krefeld at the Hochschule Niederrhein, founding the Smart Paint Factory Alliance e.V. on March 28, 2022.
The workference was attended by 55 people on site, with another 30 odd attending online (mind you, with Covid not yet fully out of the way)! This audience covered the whole spectrum of the value chain “Coating”, from raw material supplier to paint manufacturers, paint users as well as a paint recycler together with digital service providers.
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Where are we today?
6 company members and 11 personal members; 2 workgroups that formed out of the 6 workshops fielded during the workference that meet several times in a semi-regular fashion; a cooperation with the Smart Process Manufacturing congress of the Vogel Communication Group.
And a second Workference around the corner on June 13-14 at the Fraunhofer Institute IFAM in Bremen, Germany (https://www.dhirubhai.net/events/smartpaintfactoryallianceworkfe7169300892922400768/).
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What is the goal?
Get the whole value chain “Coating” involved to tackle problems such as sustainability and the European Green Deal by holistically approaching all aspects of digitalization.
No small task? Sure – but someone has to start it, and it is very satisfying to see when discussing these goals with peers when at a certain point the eyes light up because the immediate reactions of “that is not going to work” change to envisioning the potentials.
Let's see if there are more like-minded Coating people here on LinkedIn - share your thoughts in the comments, please!
Studium/Promotion - und wie gehts weiter? Wie den passenden Job finden? ∣ Neuorientierung? ∣ Mentoring & Motivation durch Expertise in chemischer & pharmazeutischer Industrie ∣ auch Online
1 年Toller Erfahrungsbericht Ulf Stalmach, der zeigt, wie wichtig das Hinterfragen ist - echt Naturwissenschaftler! ??
WK Professional Services - Tangible results for companies
1 年Weiter viel Erfolg, Ulf Stalmach! Dieser wird sicher kommen, wenn es mehr Mitstreiter mit deinem Einsatz in der Allianz gibt. Die Posts einiger Mitglieder weisen bereits in die richtige Richtung!
Hello Ulf, it's great to see, how our idea, we had in #ORONTEC, is becoming more and more a reality in this exciting community #smartpaintfactoryalliance. Your work is very important for each single member and for the SPFA at all.
Intern at BMW Group | ??Master Student at University of Bayreuth | ??Battery Materials & Technology
1 年An interesting post. I myself also have a lot of ?why“ during my work as a lab assistant. Throughout my study, asking why is always important to perform a better judgement/ analytical thinking. But during my Ausbildung I realized, a ?why“-question is not always important. Most people would actually say ?well, we have been doing it for X years, and it works“. I guess I need to learn to be satisfied with that. I have learned to accept that the approach in the industry is different than in a research facility, such as for example in the University/ Research facility. But I do agree that digitalization in the paint industry is indeed the next big thing. Digitalized recipes of paint systems, a database of laboratory results in the past years, etc. are definitely keys to make our working life better. Troubleshooting will be easier if we keep records of errors and solutions digitally. But this is maybe just my limited knowledge in the laboratory. I believe digitalization has even a bigger influence for the whole company process. Thank you for sharing ????