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Hans Thalbauer can look back on a career at SAP spanning almost 18 years. He has held the position of Senior Vice President Digital Supply Chain and Internet of Things at the company since 2016.

"A 'smart factory' or Manufacturing 4.0 should create concrete added value, that is beyond question for the management of every company. And the fact that SMEs and larger companies in Germany in particular are very open to innovation can also be seen in a study of around 280 application examples from the field of Industry 4.0 by Deloitte. The proportion of IoT projects in manufacturing is 77 percent. Process efficiency and early quality assurance are at the top of the list of project expectations. Quality assurance and predictive maintenance in particular bring new concepts with them.

The fast track to the digital twin is via in-memory processing and connection to the cloud.

The second necessity is the connection to the cloud, because this is where the connection to the departments can be created and traditional technology in the individual applications can be raised to the current level. In terms of technology, this is done with the use of containers, the next generation of virtualization, so to speak. A key advantage of container technology is the increase in portability and flexibility, making containers an essential part of a company's modern cloud strategy. The integration of container technologies such as Kubernetes into the IT architecture is essential for the future. In this way, services are broken down into so-called microservices that can be re-orchestrated depending on the use case. A good ERP provider has corresponding cloud platforms in its portfolio. With its microservices, such a digital innovation system also provides the latest technologies such as machine learning, blockchain, analytics and big data analysis. SAP Leonardo, for example, is SAP's central system for driving forward Industry 4.0 and digitalization projects.

How do core issues such as quality assurance and maintenance now present themselves in the new light? The step into the new dimension of automation also requires new thinking. This is where a concept that has recently been adopted by various providers as the basis for automation and IoT processes comes into play: the digital twin.

A digital twin is an identical representation of a specific product in a computer system. In addition to design data, it also contains many other parameters, such as business data. It is networked with its real, physical representation via sensors. All individual digital twins form a network from which insights for development, production, maintenance and marketing are gained. Ultra-modern digital twins work with artificial intelligence, machine learning and analysis software. Based on real-time information, they create evaluations that allow conclusions to be drawn for product improvement, maintenance work or customer satisfaction.

Predictive maintenance for maintenance and insurance assessment

Companies that use their new IT architecture and IoT to connect to their machines in production can gain valuable insights. In predictive maintenance, for example, this includes emerging cases of damage - which is not only important for maintenance, but also for insurance assessments, for example. A system that not only provides maintenance data in near real time using a digital twin, but also identifies opportunities for streamlining and speeding up production, which parts can be improved in the next batch, how quickly they can be procured and how quickly the finished product can be delivered, is effectively the burning glass or the next stage of automation, which has always wanted to transfer process control and regulation tasks from humans to artificial systems.

Using in-memory databases and cloud technologies, companies are going far beyond ERP and MES. The principle of digitalization thinks from the customer's perspective and suddenly develops completely different business models thanks to new possibilities. Companies are thus taking automation to a new level - not only in terms of improving production parameters, but also in terms of "rethinking" products and services." Hans Thalbauer/ee

HMI, Hall 7, Stand A02