News
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....
Bosch Rexroth: Automation via App
You rub your eyes: at the automation trade fair SPS, which for many years stood for the German words for "programmable logic controllers" and is now the abbreviation for "Smart Production Solutions", it almost looks like it used to. And yet at many stands, nothing is as it used to be. Take Bosch Rexroth, for example. On the one hand, there are...
Successful PLM (and ERP) reboot with Bluestar PLM at DAS EE
When DAS Environmental Expert GmbH (DAS EE for short) embarked on the journey from PDM to PLM, it was by no means foreseeable where the company would be today, some 2 years later. It has made a considerable leap digitally: from on-premises to the cloud; from M-CAD document management to multi-CAD connection to a proper PLM; from an interface...
ctrlX Automation Ecosystem Of Bosch Rexroth Grows
There are worlds between conventional automation using proprietary MES systems and the new world of cloud-native, open microservices. All the more impressive, therefore, how Bosch Rexroth's fledgling open automation platform is growing and finding important partners in the industry for a digital ecosystem. Most recently Dell Technologies, Nokia...
Rittal, Eplan, Cideon, GEC at SPS: Using Data Spaces as an Opportunity
At the SPS in Nuremberg, the companies of the Friedhelm Loh Group want to show how the optimization of processes across the entire value chain increases efficiency and productivity while helping to master the energy transition. Through the digital networking of hardware and software in shared data spaces. Among other things, using the example of...
Jim Heppelmann In Munich: Farewell And One More Success Message
At the end of 26 years of successfully leading PTC, Jim Heppelmann stopped by PTC's new office in Munich on October 5 as part of his global farewell tour. At the beginning of 2024, he will hand over the baton as CEO to Neil Barua, who joined him at the end of the press roundtable. Just the day before, another corporate acquisition had been...
59th sendler\circle in Hamburg – an interesting closing point
If it were up to the interesting topics and top-class speakers, the 59th sendlercircle would not have had to be the last one. But its core, the industry of industrial software providers, has changed fundamentally, and the number of participants has become too small for the continuation of the circle. Today, software for digital transformation is...