Schaeffler and Siemens bring Industrial Copilot into production

The technology company Siemens uses generative artificial intelligence (AI) to drive innovation and efficiency in the design, engineering, manufacturing and operational lifecycle of products. At the SPS 2023 trade fair, Siemens and motion technology company Schaeffler presented a machine enhanced with the Industrial Copilot for the first time. The two companies will show how the Industrial Copilot can complement Siemens' industrial automation solutions.

Making employees more efficient

To support engineers in their diverse automation tasks, the AI-supported assistant is connected to Siemens' Totally Integrated Automation (TIA) portal engineering framework via the open API interface TIA Portal Openness. The Industrial Copilot helps Schaeffler's automation engineers, for example, to generate code faster for programmable logic controllers (PLCs), which control most of the machines in the world's factories. Engineering teams can significantly reduce the time and likelihood of errors by generating PLC code through natural language input.

Useful for repetitive tasks

As industrial companies accelerate their automation and digitalization journey, the need for experienced automation engineers to implement these projects is increasing. Siemens Industrial Copilot helps automate repetitive tasks and frees up engineering resources for higher value tasks. It also enables less experienced employees on the shop floor to grow into technical roles.

"Klaus Rosenfeld, CEO of Schaeffler, said: "Digital transformation is a top priority for Schaeffler and plays a key role in our corporate strategy. Generative AI solutions such as the Industrial Copilot will accelerate this journey and support our employees in their tasks. We are working with Siemens because we are both technology companies and share the same vision: To transform the way we work."

Find and rectify faults: Reduce machine downtimes

The Industrial Copilot has access to all relevant documentation, guidelines and manuals to help factory staff identify potential faults. These functions enable maintenance teams to identify faults and develop step-by-step solutions more quickly. This will help to significantly reduce machine downtime, make industrial companies more efficient and thus drive more sustainable production.

Talking to machines in our language

"This is the beginning of a new era: we used to have to speak to machines in their language. With Siemens Industrial Copilot, we can speak to machines in our language," said Cedrik Neike, Member of the Siemens Managing Board CEO Digital Industries. "In a few years, AI will be omnipresent in industry. Siemens and Schaeffler are pioneers and are joining forces to make generative AI suitable for industry."

Overall, the generative AI-supported assistant will help to optimize the engineering and operating life cycle. From the planning phase to validation, the generation of unit tests, monitoring and the optimization of machine performance, the Industrial Copilot will make human-machine interaction more intuitive, efficient and faster.