Dr. Paral, what exactly is behind the 'Smart Prototype Factory Platform' project?
■ In order to be able to meet the challenges of the industrial market and our customers in the future, we need to understand the demands that tomorrow's production will place on our own manufacturing concepts, our connectors and the topic of connectivity in general. This is exactly what the 'Smart Prototype Factory Platform' project aims to find out.

To this end, the existing machines and equipment in the existing prototype production facility at our plant in the Netherlands are being adapted to an Industry 4.0 environment over an area of around 100 square meters. The challenges faced by employees as a result of the associated change are being addressed, as are the challenges of connecting and evaluating data from existing equipment. The control of machines, 3D printers and manual assembly workstations will be implemented in a real, secure, intelligently connected production environment. The ultimate aim is to develop a cloud-based real-time control concept that can dispense with existing PLC controls at store floor level. In this environment, products should find and execute their next production steps and equipment independently. New inline quality checks should also ensure robust and reliable production with zero errors.

There are already various smart factory approaches and projects - why do you have to start your own now?
■ From our point of view, there are two good reasons to have your own 'smart factory' in-house. The first is derived from an economic perspective. We have more than 100 production sites worldwide. The requirements for a versatile, global production network can be worked out and tested in a Smart Prototype Factory before the corresponding solutions are transferred to the actual production facilities. This reduces risk and increases productivity and efficiency in the long term.

The second reason is no less important. The demands on a traditional connector manufacturer are changing. This means that in the future, we will not only connect the real world with our solutions. Every real object will have a virtual parallel object that manages all the information of the real object. These connections between the real and virtual objects, as well as between the virtual objects themselves, will bring additional challenges that we want to address with our own Smart Prototype Factory.

And what exactly are you missing from the existing smart factory approaches?
■ Let me say one thing up front - we are keeping a close eye on what activities are taking place in the field of smart factories and also welcome the German government's initiative with regard to the competence centers on the topic of Industry 4.0. However, the existing approaches mostly pursue the goal of validating new research. The reference to real tasks in a real production environment - i.e. the effort and benefits of new Industry 4.0 solutions for precisely these environments - takes a back seat in most initiatives. This is precisely where we see a great need to catch up.

For years, German industry was synonymous with high quality and reliability thanks to the 'Made in Germany' label. Due to global competition, many companies have also moved abroad in order to reduce wage and ancillary costs. Together with the original strengths of Germany as a production location, the new solutions driven by the fourth industrial revolution could bring SMEs in particular back to their former position - but only if we take a joint approach between research and the real production environment!

Are there any other people besides TE who are working towards achieving these goals?
■ Absolutely. As we don't want to create 'clouds' with our Smart Prototype Factory, the first step will be to use existing solutions to connect the real objects of a production environment with the virtual world via secure and robust processes. To this end, we have selected partners from research and development who share this idea with us. This environment will then be successively expanded in line with a global network in order to develop new processes for our own production facilities, optimize existing processes and then transfer these new solutions to our real production environment worldwide.

How long is the project scheduled for and what is the specific financing situation?
■ We are taking a two-pronged approach here. Firstly, we have integrated the initiatives we have been running for years on the subject of digital engineering and the digital factory into the concept. In January, we also submitted a research proposal to the EU in order to make this approach transparent and accessible to other interested companies at European level in addition to our customers and suppliers. The project has a total volume of 7 million euros and is designed to run for three years.

To what extent does the topic of additive manufacturing or 3D printing play a role in the project?
■ Additive manufacturing has been propagated for more than ten years as the future solution for a flexible, 'lean one piece flow' production strategy. Machine and material manufacturers have now recognized that a common path can lead to such solutions. In other words: In the area of prototypes, we want to move away from pure 'show-and-tell' components towards samples for fast and efficient development and verification for our internal and external customers.

The project partners

In addition to TE Connectivity, the following partners are involved in the project: Synesis (Italy), Sirris (Belgium), Fontys (Netherlands), MPDV (Germany), Port (Germany), Fundación Tecnalia Research & Innovation (Spain), Mechatronics BV (Netherlands), Université de Nantes (France), NXTControl (Austria) and SAP (Germany).