SPS IPC Drives Italia 2019 - Beyond "Industry 4.0"
Digital manufacturing solutions hold great potential for manufacturers to fully unlock the promise of Industry 4.0.
In the last couple of years, the support of the Italian Government has helped move the bar toward a greater realization of the 4th Industrial Revolution's promise for manufacturing.
I have been in Parma at the SPS IPC Drives Italia, excited to see how the Industrial Automation ecosystem decided to leverage modern software to exploit new opportunities.
I found a pretty crowded trade show which has been confirmed by the official numbers: an increased number of exhibitors (854 exhibitors, + 6%) and most important an impressive increase of the visitors: 41,528 (+ 18%).
Without any doubt such an outstanding result has been achieved thanks to a path entirely dedicated to the Digital Transformation - called District 4.0 - divided into 4 thematic areas (Advanced Automation, Digital & Software, Competence Academy and Robotics & Mechatronics) and a Scientific Committee that, with periodic meetings, finalized the themes of the scientific conferences of the fair.
Strategic Partnerships for a compelling value proposition
The rise of collaborative robots
Unsurprisingly, I've seen robotics manufacturers showcasing collaborative robotics (aka cobots) as the building block of a digital smart factory solution enabling the flexibility needed to target mass customization.
One of the most active vendors was Mitsubishi Electric leader of the e-F@ctory Alliance.
The general thread offers food for thought to manufacturers looking at the evolution of the relationship between man and robot.
A collaborative environment is evolving more and more boost by Industrial IoT and Artificial Intelligence.
The first exciting showcase is the result of a partnership of Mitsubishi with SAP.
Two cobots out of the cage were able to work physically in close contact, performing the analysis of chemical samples on different control stations. The robots were connected to the SAP Cloud Platform acting both: as a unifying element, facilitating the collaboration of the robots; and as a platform always collecting operational data.
On top of that, SAP was demonstrating its new SaaS for predictive maintenance and predictive quality.
It would be interesting to look at the evolution of such a partnership as a consequence of the acquisition of ICONICS who developed a Microsoft Azure-based cloud platform as a critical element of their HMI/SCADA new generation offering.
The second one was showcasing the Mitsubishi Electric and Datalogic partnership through an exciting concept of augmented reality two different industrial scenarios which can be easily combined in a real production environment where a Mitsubishi Cobot was able to augment its standard behavior by reacting to critical real-time digital inputs coming from safety and visual Datalogic devices.
The possibility of cobots to feel the ecosystems and the dynamics of the shop floor would open enormous opportunity in assembly scenarios.
Another excellent example of collaboration between big players was Omron with Oracle Cloud.
The joint Omron-Oracle proposal wanted to inspire manufacturers showcasing a flexible production line able to adapt according to the production mix and drive factory systems to more significant interaction between people, machines, and devices. These interactions were fed by the data which were analyzed continuously and used to activate the platform's integrated automation functions in real time and provide intelligent and sophisticated tools for all aspects of the industrial supply chain.
Disruptive ideas supporting frontline workers
Out of the pure robotics area, our attention has been captured by a couple of collaboration between industrial automation vendors and startups.
The first one was a scenario prepared by SEW-EURODRIVE with the support of Antikytera (ErMes AR App).
The AR Remote Assistance App concept allows the creation of an augmented collaborative scenario with Engineers, SMEs, quality inspectors able to share their perspective into the real manufacturing contexts.
The new technology allows a simultaneously interact within the 3D environment overlaying "persistent" positioned information. It would find high applicability in special situations where several roles are supposed to check, evaluate the progress of a task - it can span from experimental scenarios, through quality inspection, buy-off till after-sales customer service.
The second one was the COMAU exoskeleton MATE developed in conjunction with IUVO and Ossur.
I had the chance to try it and feel how it can be valuable to support complex assembly/disassembly scenarios by providing constant and advanced assistance. This innovative exoskeleton can accurately replicate any shoulder movement, adhering to the body like a second skin.
Who am I? SCADA, MES, MOM, or IIoT?
It has been exciting to notice how the convergence between the OT information model and the IT-driven opportunities is still pushing industrial software big players to acquisitions, partnerships and a continuous review of the positioning of all the pieces of complex industrial software portfolio.
The big players led by Siemens with the well-known Digital Enterprise and followed by Rockwell Automation and PTC with the Connected Enterprise from were able to demonstrate cohesive and effective end-to-end-scenarios with a smart portfolio mapping.
In addition to that it is worth mentioning how also pure SCADA players like Inductive Automation (Ignition) were trying to move out of their standard scope towards MES and IIoT scenarios -a valuable proposition for the Italian SMB market (Who better than a SCADA system knows how to handle time series from IoT gateways?).
Starting from a different perspective, most of the Industrial IoT demo was overlapping the MES and SCADA scope.
A clear example was the digital airplane factory. In that small scenario, the Siemens Industrial IoT PaaS Mindsphere in combination with IoT sensors and gateways provided by HMS Networks was able to control a monitor a complete paper plane production line.
Beyond Industrial Software
As the last subgroup let us share two "thinking out of the industrial box" proposals.
The first one is an Italian startup Enhancers sponsored and supported by Oracle Cloud. A team fully oriented on solving what is historically identified as the worst enemies of Industrial software, user adoption.
The core scenario was a typical supply chain of a food producer supported by Oracle SCM cloud enhanced by a distributed, hybrid and interconnected consumer experience that crosses the barrier between physical and digital to monitor the complete product lifecycle.
Finally, I would like to share what I considered from the eyes of the C-suite of a manufacturing company the most impressive one: Relayr
Most of the manufacturers have severe challenges in realizing ROI out of digital transformation programs. They are overwhelmed by marketing messages from analysts and software firms talking about their risk to be disrupted if they are not investing in new digital opportunities but when it is time to realize the program the whole responsibility falls on the manufacturer.
Relayr (supported by the parent company Munich RE) had the brilliant idea to combine, technology, industrial subject matter experts, financial services and (the real differentiator) insurance offerings to partner with their customers as a committed trusted advisor and performer able to deliver the identified value taking risks.
Key Takeaways
The industrial automation sector was committed to educating the Italian manufacturers to take advantage of the tax conditions and to leverage the brand new 8 Competence Centers funded by the Italian Government. They know pretty well that educated buyers become high-quality warmed-up leads.
While almost every exhibitor was referring to "4.0" to let visitors perceived they do have innovative value propositions; every discussion was often focused on technological aspects instead of trying to address top priority manufacturer pain points.
I believe every industrial automation player should explore and expand its digital strategy according to the real essence of the fourth industrial revolution: building a sustainable customer-centric trusted community moving far beyond the anachronistic barriers between customers, suppliers, and competitors.
Preparing "industry 4.0"-ready devices with an MQTT or an OPC UA interface or OEE/predictive maintenance dashboards are not sufficient to drive their customers to the best way to overcome the main challenges associated to the introduction of new digital initiatives
The community must realize that the effectiveness of any new digital strategy is proportional to the ability of the industrial automation company to enable cross-pollination with resources with a B2C mindset. This approach appears to be even more effective if achieved through a business partnership with a startup with a different business focus.