News
Smart Automation Platforms At A Click
Smart Automation is online. Nine providers of 10 open, Linux-based app platforms in industrial automation are available here for the first time with brief information at the click of a mouse. They are also directly compared with each other in key aspects in a market overview. And from now on, the providers can also highlight the special features...
Rittal, Eplan, Cideon, GEC: Joint Booth With Open Platform
Two years ago, the companies of the Friedhelm Loh Group presented the ONCITE Digital Production System (DPS) platform from German Edge Cloud (GEC) for the first time in Hanover. Now, for the third time at their joint booth at the Hanover Fair, the companies are demonstrating the role that combined hardware and software development can play in...
Smart Automation Platforms: More Than Just Automating Production
We conducted a survey of open platform providers for the Smart Automation page on this news portal, which is currently under construction. 9 of them took part, giving us an insight into this marketplace. The new platforms are opening doors to the Industrial Internet of Things that go beyond the mere automation of production. While the terminology...
The history of sendlercircle – Part 3: Industry 4.0, IoT, Digitalization
This article concludes my short history of 28 years of sendler\circle. The end of the circle also marks the beginning of a new development in the industry, which is focusing on apps and cloud technology. also in this application area.In 2011, the German government's Research Union made the term Industry 4.0 public. One year later, it published...
The History Of sendler\circle – Part 2: Major Topic PLM
Seven years after CADcircle was founded, IT use in the manufacturing industry had changed so radically that the circle had to realign itself. The focus was no longer on generating CAD models, but on managing product data to optimize company processes. Even if the focus at the turn of the millennium was still very much on M-CAD data. Once CAD on...
Automation Becomes Smart Automation
Announcement of a new "Smart Automation" section on this portal It is the field of manufacturing automation or industrial automation that will give industry and the industrial location in this country a new face in the coming years. From pre-programmed controllers, monolithic production systems and proprietary devices, the big step is towards...
New CONTACT Elements Module Shopfloor Planner
CONTACT Software is expanding its open Elements platform for digital Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) to include a module for resource planning on the shopfloor. CONTACT Elements for IoT offers freely combinable no-code applications for asset management and the digitalization of manufacturing. A module for workforce scheduling has now...
The sendlercircle – History Of A Rather Unique Network
From 1995 to 2023, the providers of engineering software, i.e. CAD/CAM, PDM/PLM, simulation etcetera, had a network in Germany that was unique in the world. Although the members - in the early years exclusively from the CEO-level - were the most important competitors in this special IT market, they built up a relationship of trust with each other...
World Economic Forum Davos 2024: Europe Is Missing From The AI Revolution
The FAZ reported from Davos on January 17: "On the key panels discussing the future of artificial intelligence (AI), there are hardly any Germans or even Europeans represented." This is despite the fact that everyone is aware of what Arvind Krishna, CEO of IBM, was quoted as saying in Davos by the FAZ: "Generative AI is developing ten times...
SEF Smart Electronic Factory e.V. And Mittelstand-Digital Zentrum Darmstadt: Strategic Cooperation Agreed
The SEF Smart Electronic Factory e.V. and the Mittelstand-Digital Zentrum Darmstadt are cooperating strategically to raise awareness among SMEs of the opportunities offered by digitalization and to promote new business models in this context. The overall aim is to strengthen the competitiveness of companies in Hessen and beyond. The...
New module in Bluestar PLM: Aftersales Re-Design & Re-Manufacturing
Developed in close cooperation with customer Xtek Bluestar PLM customer Xtek was due to switch from the old Microsoft ERP system AX to the new cloud-based Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&SCM in 2021. Xtek combined this with a PLM introduction. Bluestar PLM is embedded in MS Dynamics. However, shortly after the implementation, the idea for a new...
2024: The Industry Can Take The Economy To New Heights
If industry wants to, it can turn Germany's economic development into a positive one. But to do so, it must break with habits and invest boldly in the future. The tools are available and mature: cloud and AI. Using them for the digital transformation of industrial automation can make all the difference. "2023 was the year of AI innovations, 2024...
The Smart Factory Becomes Reality
If all is not mistaken, we are currently experiencing the transition from Industrie 4.0 to operational reality. When a "smart factory" was named as the goal when this initiative was publicly presented in 2011, it was - apart from model factories like the one in Kaiserslautern - still almost as theoretical as the famous cyber-physical systems that...
Xtek: Twice Engineering – Once PLM And ERP
Bluestar PLM: Aftersales Reconfiguration & Remanufacturing Module Engineer to order for heavy industry is special engineering. Every product is different, and the highest quality must be guaranteed for each one. When equipment is nearing its end of life cycle, a second type of engineering comes into play with service. This is because the...
China’s Interest in Automation in Germany
After more than two years of almost closed borders, I was back in China for the first time at the beginning of November, this time for a keynote speech on "Global Trends of Intelligent Manufacturing" in Shanghai. I took the opportunity to address the current major upheaval in industrial automation towards microservice-based composable software....