On October 9 and 10, the trade media SCOPE, Computer&AUTOMATION and handling hosted their joint Modern Assembly Congress in Stuttgart. 85 industry experts responded to the invitation and spent the two days learning about modern assembly concepts, the basics of robot and gripper selection, the true potential of trend technologies such as human-robot collaboration and the state of the art of OPC UA and TSN communication technologies.

Prof. Kirsten Tracht from the University of Bremen gave the introductory keynote speech. In her presentation "Assembly with and for people: increasing productivity without increasing the workload", she explained the motivation behind the concept of collaborative assembly. The focus was not only on the economic efficiency, but also the feasibility of this concept.

Another highlight of the day was the presentation by Heinrich Munz from Kuka. He came with the latest information on TSN and OPC UA. What efforts are underway? What is the status of standardization? What technical innovations can be expected?

The second day focused entirely on "safe assembly". Andreas Schunkert from Universal Robots kicked things off. In his keynote speech "Human-robot collaboration - when is safe really safe?", he provided information on safety measures and various standards as well as when conformity with standards has been achieved. His presentation provided the audience with guidelines for selecting the right cobot.

Dirk Jonsson from Treston gave the congress participants an insight into "Ergonomics at the assembly workstation". He emphasized that ergonomics is not just a height-adjustable table, but goes much further. In this context, he emphasized the importance of light for the well-being and productivity of workers.

The two-day congress concluded with a presentation by Markus Ahorner from Ahorner & Partner. His topic: "Artificial intelligence - application and concrete optimizations in production". In addition to the basics of AI, he put the hype topic in the right perspective in relation to its significance for production.

Before and after the "Modern Assembly" congress, participants will also have the opportunity to visit the Motek international trade fair for production and assembly automation and use their experience from the congress to gather information for their company.

The next "Modern Assembly" congress will take place on October 8 and 9, 2019, parallel to Motek in Stuttgart. Further information can be found at www.moderne-montage.de