Mr. Jamal, you have been working in electrical measurement and automation technology for over 30 years. How would you assess the past 25 years of automation - especially in relation to the German industry?

Rahman Jamal: Electrical automation has had an eventful childhood over the last 25 years - it has grown enormously, established itself in many markets and, in my opinion, has developed into a key industry for Germany's economic success. Germany has a special position when it comes to automation. On the one hand, because many domestic, once small and medium-sized companies have developed into important global players and, on the other hand, because a unique diversity and quality of automation providers has emerged in Germany; an automation biotope that can be seen every year at the SPS in Nuremberg, for example, and that cross-fertilizes each other wonderfully with know-how and inspiration. We can look forward to seeing what else this industry will achieve when - to stay with the metaphor - it reaches puberty, i.e. the turbulent, IT-driven transition to adulthood.

In your opinion, what is the key to success?

One of the parameters for success is certainly the German engineering spirit: We had and still have well-trained, committed and also lateral-thinking - please see this word in its original positive meaning - engineers, many of whom also brought a good shot of entrepreneurial spirit and implemented it fantastically.

What do you mean by lateral thinking?

In recent years, the domestic automation industry has largely succeeded in combining the existing deep industrial automation know-how with the decisive impetus for innovation from the IT and consumer world. There are a number of innovations in industrial automation that are based on this, have been very disruptive and have challenged and also changed the status quo. And we are only at the beginning of the fusion of IT and automation technology.

Can you back this up with examples?

Let's start with open PC-based automation and measurement technology: Both approaches began in the 1990s at the lower end of the market with simple applications and rose relentlessly upwards, successively displacing established competitors. The disruptive approach was: the software paired with PC technology determines the functionality of the hardware; a good alternative to the expensive dedicated stand-alone devices specified by manufacturers. So while established players mostly got caught up in the frenzy of sustaining innovation - stand-alone PLCs and stand-alone meters - selling ever more expensive products to established customers, they left gaps for less well-off target groups who also wanted to benefit from ground-breaking technology. And at lower prices. In doing so, they opened up dangerous scope for disruption.

And besides PC technology?

Take a look at the fieldbus sector: The fieldbus in its original conception connects field devices - essentially sensors and actuators - with the control system, the PLC.
Based on this idea, a wide variety of fieldbus protocols sprang up like mushrooms. Ongoing innovation, particularly in the office and Internet sector, in terms of interoperability and manufacturer independence, meant that Ethernet found its way into fieldbus technology. The result: almost every fieldbus variant introduced an Industrial Ethernet successor. The fact is that industrial communication in the age of Industry 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things is now a basic technology for the future and Ethernet-based networks are becoming increasingly important and replacing proprietary fieldbuses. And a compliment to the industry: it has not become fixated on its supreme discipline of fieldbus, but is instead following the Ethernet-based path, shaping it to a large extent and is thus also one of the pacesetters in the now burgeoning Internet of Industry - probably one of the most formative further development parameters of automation in its upcoming transition from childhood to adult status!

What do you mean?

The Internet of Things, which originated in the commercial environment, and therefore the convergence of the digital and physical worlds, is finding its way into automation technology in the form of the Industrial Internet of Things, or IIoT for short. This is a sub-category of the IoT in an industrial context, the most diverse implementations of which can be found in all areas of machine-to-machine communication. With the smart factory version of IIoT, i.e. Industry 4.0, German industry is playing a key role worldwide in the development of the factory of the future - not only through large corporations, but also to a large extent through internationally successful SMEs.

On the cusp of puberty - continued

So Industry 4.0 is more than just a marketing phrase?

Definitely! The term was certainly very overblown and all the basic work that needs to be done disappears behind cryptic terms such as digital twin and administration shell. But the industry is constructively whirling!

Do you have any examples of this?

Apps are an important feature of the Internet of Things and are very successful in the consumer world. Automation companies have also been integrating the world of apps into their platform strategy for some time now. However, in order to achieve genuine, open, industrial automation, further foundations must be laid for the seamless merging of IT functionality with the OT world in addition to real-time-based Ethernet networks. These undoubtedly include operating systems that can run on all controllers and devices. Although the use of operating systems has long been standard in IT, it is still a novelty in the world of automation. As was once the case with Ethernet fieldbuses, we are currently experiencing a German wave of operating systems based on open source. But beware: agreeing on a standard in automation still doesn't work as quickly as it does in IT. It is still worth taking a closer look at the propagated openness with regard to the propagated operating systems, because only at second glance do you recognize the hidden vendor lock-ins, even if all these operating systems are ostensibly based on open source.
But I am convinced that agreement on standards will work faster in future than in the past. IT is simply bringing a speed to automation that is overturning old paradigms.

Are you sure about that?

Absolutely! Just take a look at control technology. We are currently making the leap from PC-based soft PLCs to cloud-based PLCs. In addition to small start-ups from Germany such as Logiccloud, even the market leader Siemens is now entering the market with this technology - a move that has surprised even many industry insiders. But I would argue that even market leader Siemens has now internalized Charles Darwin: it is not the strongest species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the most adaptable!

What about artificial intelligence, which is the hype topic in the consumer sector?

For a long time, people had the impression that Germany, as one of the most important innovation locations in the world, did not recognize the disruptive potential of AI for the German economy. However, we are now experiencing something of a renaissance, particularly in the field of industrial AI - i.e. the use of AI for the next evolutionary stage of IIoT and Industry 4.0. The goal of Industry 4.0, for example, must be AI-based zero-defect production in the next ten years.

But the targeted zero-defect production will not depend on AI alone?

No, of course not. Emerging megatrends will have a significant influence on this development. These include edge computing through to the edge cloud, the arrival of 5G in the factory, robotics integrated into production processes, autonomous systems in intralogistics and cross-company secure data infrastructures, such as the Gaia-X initiative and its offshoot Manufacturing-X, the large-scale cross-company project to digitalize supply chains in industry. Our major challenge over the next few years will therefore be to merge our outstanding industrial expertise with AI technologies, especially with the LLMs - the Large Language Models - that have been going through the roof since November 2022. Large Language Models provide the algorithmic basis for generative AI tools such as ChatGPT from Open AI or LaMDA and PaLM from Google or NeMO from Nvidia.

Do you see the goal of mature automation in zero-defect production?

ZVEI board member Rainer Brehm sees a much larger area of responsibility for the industry. (Editor's note: Read more about this in "Nachgehakt" on p. 98)
No, limiting the goal purely to production would be too short-sighted. I definitely agree with Rainer Brehm: automation is one of the key technologies for solving the problems facing the world and the candidate that can tackle the issue of sustainability most efficiently. I believe that the combination of IT and automation in particular has a great deal of solution potential.
To date, IT has been heavily in the hands of the US; Germany has a leading role in automation - if we tackle this skillfully, we should be able to get young, technically interested people excited about automation - especially if we manage to convey the sustainability potential of automation through arguments and an authentic role model. In my opinion, successfully acquiring young talent is the most important job we have to tackle now in order to maintain our strong position in the market.