Alexa, Siri, Cortana, Bixbi...: These names can now be heard in more and more households. Voice assistants take over many tasks on demand, from switching on the radio and controlling the lights to creating shopping lists. With the increasing availability of smart devices, more and more applications are becoming established that make housework easier by automating processes, taking over tedious tasks and freeing up time.

While intelligent voice recognition and control is already part of everyday life in the private sphere, it has hardly become established in the manufacturing industry. Only a few applications are in use here, such as the "Pick by Voice" process in order picking or the automated recording of telephone inquiries in customer service.

With advancing digitalization and networking, voice control is also opening up potential for optimizing processes, activities, costs and quality in other areas of production and logistics. The joint project "Smart Speaker", which has now been launched, aims to tap into this potential for SMEs in the mechanical and plant engineering sector. In the consortium, the FIR at RWTH Aachen University, the International Performance Research Institute (IPRI) and partners from companies and trade associations are investigating the possible applications, effects and benefits of voice assistance systems in industrial use.

The aim of the project is to identify application scenarios with significant benefits, analyze their value creation potential and make them usable for companies. To this end, the Smart Speaker Playbook is to be developed within the research project to facilitate the specific identification, prioritization and implementation of applications with the greatest benefit for a company.

The "Smart Speaker" project is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) under the auspices of the German Federation of Industrial Research Associations "Otto von Guericke" e. V. (AIF). Over a period of two years, the consortium aims to realize its vision of strengthening the value creation potential in companies by developing a large number of applications that communicate with each other.

Interested companies from the mechanical and plant engineering sector as well as trade associations are cordially invited to help shape the project. As participants, they have the opportunity to actively take part in the piloting of processes and contribute their own questions to the research work. Upon completion, they will receive exclusive, free access to the research results. as