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These are challenging times for machine builders. Geopolitical tensions, the shortage of skilled personnel, higher energy prices, wage indexations ... are having their impact on the turnover and profitability of many companies. The answer lies in digitisation for more transparency, process stability, efficiency and even new business models. But setting up a digitisation strategy is by no means an easy task. Some companies have ideas, but find it difficult to implement them or lack the inspiration to walk this ‘new’ path. Whatever you need, Lenze is a partner to build on in any automation and digitalisation project.
Lenze summarises the challenges in seven areas of action. Everything starts with a good data strategy. Present today in most large companies, but not yet in all SMEs. Yet most machine builders are already focusing heavily on data. Capping is ticked off, but what can we do with it now? Machine builders need to think about how that data can form the basis for new processes or business models. But to take that step, you need to understand the data, have it available and be sure of its quality. The next step is deciding with whom, when and how to share the data and what business models you can set up to do so.
A key requirement for increasing the speed of development is the use of real-time simulation. Your processes can then be executed virtually at the same speed. The main challenge? The hardware and software must be fully synchronised. But those who succeed in this reap the rewards: it speeds up commissioning, prevents errors, reduces costs and saves time.
Legislators are increasingly demanding transparency. So there are opportunities within regulations to differentiate yourself in this. In the future, digital product passports, among other things, will become a reality. By thinking smartly about this already today, you can make a virtue of a necessity.
There is no more pressing topic in automation than AI. But most companies are stuck with proof of concept. It is proving difficult to scale up. Understanding how reinforcement learning (making an AI agent learn by interacting with its environment) works and how to apply it is especially challenging. Moreover, for simpler problems, appropriate tools are not always available. There is also still a lack of the broad industrialisation of practical examples. In time, a new kind of service provider will emerge; the AI integrator.
AI is changing processes, but also organisations. People who currently perform tasks without AI will have to actively use the technology in the future. This means that there will be an (even greater) shortage of skilled workers and that the existing workforce will have to take on new, different tasks. Most mechanical engineering companies need to train their workers thoroughly and create new job profiles.
However much we digitise in industry, that does not make an engineer an AI expert. When companies want to start using AI for their products, they usually hire three PhDs first. However, PhDs want to do research and not necessarily develop a market-ready product. One tip: get engineers to collaborate across company boundaries if resources are too scarce. And experiment initially with open source software. For basic development, those solutions are sufficient.
Whether you think of them as water and fire or pepper and salt, OT and IT belong irrevocably together in modern manufacturing environments. Companies need to have hardware that meets today's IT needs. But they also need to understand the basics of cyber security and its importance to their business. Machine builders need to develop a patch strategy and implement new cyber rules.
The tasks facing machine builders are enormous, but not insurmountable. However, mechanical engineering will not be able to avoid cooperation with suppliers and even competition. It is important to consider digitalisation of the business model and cyber security as early as the product development phase. It also helps to develop ideas together with customers and get suppliers on board. Lenze champions collaboration with its customers and develops mechanical engineering solutions with them.
