What will the production of the future look like? Previous autonomy concepts put machines in the foreground and humans no longer play a role. SmartFactory-KL believes this assumption is wrong. It is now presenting a new concept that puts people at the center: Production Level 4. "As sovereigns, humans will and must be able to change every decision made by a machine," says Prof. Martin Ruskowski, CEO of SmartFactory-KL. "It will remain our responsibility what happens in production. Neither a machine nor artificial intelligence can or should take this responsibility away from us!"

Production Level 4 involves people

"Production Level 4 achieves the sustainable benefits of Industry 4.0 by integrating artificial intelligence (AI), automation and people," emphasizes Andreas Huhmann. He sits on the SmartFactory-KL board and is Strategy Consultant Connectivity + Networks at Harting GmbH. "We at SmartFactory-KL chose the term because we want to show that the consistent further development within Industry 4.0 can only be achieved with autonomy, i.e. with combined human and artificial intelligence."

In analogy to autonomous driving, previous theory papers on industrial production describe six levels of autonomy from 0 to 5, where 5 means "without human intervention". "However, we don't see this level as the goal," says Ruskowski. "Routine tasks will certainly be replaced by AI or machines. But skills such as genuine understanding, creativity, morality or emotions are not learned by machines or software. We assume that technology is there to support people, not to control them. Production Level 4 should make this clear."

(from left to right): Andreas Huhmann, Prof. Martin Ruskowski, Prof. Hans Dieter Schotten.

© SmartFactory-KL; M. Schäfer

The two board members of SmartFactory-KL are supported by Prof. Hans Dieter Schotten. The Scientific Director at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) focuses on AI and 5G. He sees the two key technologies as central to the development of the production of the future: "Without secure and fast data connections, we cannot use AI methods effectively." And Ruskowski adds: "5G is currently the only wireless technology that can be used to transport large volumes of data in an industrial environment without interruption."

Demonstrator as a cross-manufacturer platform

"The SmartFactory-KL forms the link between research and application," says Huhmann. "We develop theoretical concepts with our experts and scientists, which we then transfer to industrial application. This interaction is what makes SmartFactory Kaiserslautern so special."

A new demonstrator is currently under construction in accordance with the Production Level 4 specifications. The first step into the future will then be shown at the Hannover Messe in 2020. "We have developed a vision of where we want to be in 2025," explains Ruskowski, adding: "The demonstrator is designed in such a way that we can develop it further every year until we have realized Production Level 4 in five years' time."

Andreas Huhmann concludes: "This translation of theory into practice is an important reason for our 53 members from industry to get involved with us." The companies work together in working groups on relevant issues across platforms. The experts from SmartFactory-KL lead the working groups, while the industry members formulate their needs and feed the results of the working groups back into production. For some members, this approach is already part of the company strategy. For example, SmartFactory-KL member IBM emphasized its desire to promote the "open source spirit", which is reflected in transparency, collaboration, commitment and community, when it acquired Red Hat in June 2019. Even ZDF has been publishing Terra-X clips under a free, Wikipedia-compatible license for a few days now.