Automation

The concept of Industry 4.0 and Smart Factory envisions a production that is as automated as possible with minimal manual intervention. This requires on the one hand the automation of all machines and on the other hand their automated control by higher level systems. With our key competence in the areas of MES for manufacturing control as well as our PAC equipment integration platform for machine automation, we have successfully supported customers worldwide to automate their manufacturing.

Typical requirements of our customers for manufacturing automation:

• Integration into a diverse system landscape

• Support of different automation levels

• Realization of various automation scenarios

• Support of different communication protocols and bridging of semantic gaps

• Long-term maintainability

In our experience, most customers start with a Data Collection as their first level of automation on the way to a Smart Factory. A Smart Manufacturing Audit explicitly reveals the status quo of the own manufacturing environment as a basis for automation. Further, modern Smart Manufacturing solution environments and their seamless system and data integration are key contributors to successful automation.

Often, the Data Collection level is followed by Basic Automation in initially selected manufacturing areas to fulfill increasing requirements. The enormous potential of automation according to concepts such as Industry 4.0 or Smart Factory is leveraged with Advanced Automation. This level significantly contributes to an increased manufacturing efficiency while simultaneously optimizing the use of resources and, thereby, increasing overall profitability.

We successfully accompany many customers from the concept phase through a step-by-step implementation of the different automation levels. Our PAC integration platform supports a flexible, scalable implementation with simple central administration and long-term maintainability and it evolves with the automation requirements of our customers.