According to Helmrich, German industry and SMEs in particular are already on the path to Industry 4.0. Siemens now wants to set the course for the next steps by integrating future technologies into its digital enterprise offering. To this end, the Siemens Managing Board announced various innovations at the press conference at SPS IPC Drives 2018.

The Simatic IPC 227E, for example, is a new hardware platform for edge applications: The embedded industrial PC enables decentralized data processing or analysis close to the machine and the manufacturing process - keyword edge computing - and is therefore an ideal addition to cloud computing with the open IoT operating system MindSphere, according to Helmrich.

On the subject of artificial intelligence, a module with an integrated AI-capable chip - the new Intel Movidius Myriad X Vision Processing Unit - for the Simatic S7-1500 controller and the ET 200MP I/O system will be launched in early 2019. This chip is the first in its class with a dedicated hardware accelerator for deep neural network structures. Machine learning algorithms can be used to optimize quality controls and robot-based handling processes, for example.

Last but not least, there are enhancements to Mindsphere: Three new application packages (Connect & Monitor, Analyze & Predict, Digitalize & Transform) are designed to help users connect, analyse and optimize assets even faster and predict and prevent unplanned plant downtimes. They are also intended to simplify the development and sale of targeted applications and thus the development of new services and business models. Helmrich comments: "Users benefit from the growing ecosystem around MindSphere: It enables high flexibility in the choice of infrastructure as well as simplified application development through Siemens' acquisition of Mendix with its LowCode platform. The number of members of the MindSphere World user organization has grown to 37 in Germany and 18 in Italy."

Partnership with Aruba and Bentley Systems

Speaking of partnerships: shortly before the trade fair, Siemens announced a cooperation with Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) company. For Klaus Helmrich, this is an important step "by supplementing our offering in the field of industrial networks - one of the pillars of the digital enterprise - with Aruba's complementary offering for wired and wireless IT networks." With the corresponding expertise of both companies in their respective areas, the transition between OT (Operational Technology) and IT (Information Technology) can be customized. It is precisely in this area that there is often still a lack of integration, i.e. industrial networks are usually only loosely connected to the IT networks in companies.

Helmrich cited the expanded cooperation with Bentley Systems as another example. Both companies recently announced the joint development of PlantSight Cloud Services. These are designed to provide users with access to 1D/2D/3D data via the web at any time - and thus a constantly updated digital twin of plants. In view of the long service life of plants in the process industry, companies in this sector in particular should benefit from this.