Intec/Z connect 2021
Production of tomorrow - an interview with Professor Martin Dix
Professor Martin Dix has been one of the three institute directors of the Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology IWU in Chemnitz since October 2020 and has also been appointed Professor of Production Systems and Processes at Chemnitz University of Technology. We spoke to him about research for industrial applications and the future prospects of German industry.
What role will people play in the production of tomorrow?
Humans will never disappear from production. Compared to artificial intelligence, only humans are truly creative and also significantly more flexible than any production system. But people also make mistakes. In the best case scenario, modern production therefore allows people to be creative by relieving them of routine tasks and preventing errors at the same time.
What is the difference between research at a university and at a Fraunhofer Institute? Why the dual role?
There are two different types of research: the university allows freedom in research, young scientists can also work on more unusual ideas with low TRLs, which may not be immediately realizable in real production in the end, but provide valuable food for thought. At the IWU, we work in a very application-oriented and results-oriented manner in close cooperation with industry. Experienced employees are crucial here. This interaction results in the greatest potential.
How do you see IT and OT growing together?
If you look at the different levels in a networked factory, it is important that faults and critical changes are detected quickly and reliably and are best solved automatically at the right place. Problems at the process level, on the store floor, must be able to be solved in real time - i.e. at the process level by adjusting the machine control system. If a process needs to be readjusted, this must happen immediately, which is why cloud services are not the solution here. Shifting the problem to a higher level creates delays. IIOT solutions and cloud services are the solution for bringing together diverse data from subsystems or across the entire process chain. Machine learning is a methodology that allows us to generate knowledge from the multitude of data, even over long periods of time, and thus make production more quality-assured.
If you would like to find out more, I look forward to welcoming you virtually to my keynote at Intec/Z connect 2021.
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