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The first annual conference by AGORIA and 3IF was held in Brussels on May 25, with the intent to inspire Flemish industry to innovate through digitalization and industrial IoT (IIoT). The conference was composed of presentations covering a broad range of aspects, from high level to fairly detailed, alternated with very well facilitated panel discussions. Ulrich Seldeslachts of 3IF kicked off the conference introducing the 3IF project; a government – supported initiative that helps manufacturers and their suppliers benefit from Industrial Internet, IIoT and Industrie 4.0 developments; and support the competitiveness of the Industry as a whole. The initiative is led by two non-profit associations: Sirris (representing the manufacturing industry in Belgium) and LSEC(representing technology providers, integrators and the cyber security industry, also required for faster adoption of innovations securely)
Industrie 3.0 is not over
The author presented ARC’s view on Industrial IoT, and broadened the subject to other smart manufacturing aspects that can be combined with IIoT and other IT-based technologies to innovate and grow. Bart Demaeght of Siemens and Wesley Vandewalle of GE Predix provided their visions and explained their product and service portfolio’s. Piet Verhoeven of iMINDS explained how the research projects with participation of (minimum three) Flemish Industrial partners and Flemish universities create substantial revenue growth and jobs as a result of innovation projects. The following discussion covered amongst others how SME’s can go about selecting innovation projects, the fact that industrie 4.0 (and IIoT) has started to be implemented, but that their is still potential to implement « Industrie 3.0 » solutions.
Connected products and producing individualized at mass production cost
The second presentation cycle was kicked of by Oliver Krause of Arthur D Little who showed results of a study indicating that digital innovators are likely to double their EBIT while digital laggards are likely to have stagnating EBIT. Dr. Krause shared the concept by Porter and Hempelmann, that connected products change business models, and lead to new supply eco-systems and disruption. Dr. Krause gave a list of success factors for major change initiatives, including the participation of the workforce during change projects, starting in the initial investigation stages, which is worthwhile to review for innovative and transforming companies. Marcel Laes of CimPro gave very insightful overview of creating visibility and creating sustainable improvement in utility management in SME’s and larger corporations in Belgium and The Netherlands. Mark Blekkink of Movilitas indicated how standards based modeling of industrial operations creates MES solutions, that remain agile and adaptable to changes in corporations, while interoperable with ERP systems. He presented a Cloud-based MES solution, an emerging trend. Presentations were concluded by Egbert-Jan Sol of TNO in the Netherlands, who gave an overview of Smart Industry and the associated Field Labs. He explained how BlockChain can help reducing the administrative cost of individualized production, thereby enabling individualized production at mass production cost, if combined with standardized PLM applications linked to production execution. Interestingly he noted that proximity of partners and executives in local Field Labs, creates dynamics that virtual collaboration could not have created. This ties back to the insight that the human factor remains a critical component in collaboration and innovation. In the following discussion, also Chris Decubber of EFFRA, The European Factory of the Future Association, and Wim Van der Borght of Reynaers Aluminium participated. Reynaert confirmed TNO’s thesis that experimentation can lead to new and successful company strategies, and EFFRA supported ARC’s view that broadening IIoT with Advanced Manufacturing creates potentially additional benefits.
Following a good Belgian tradition, the meeting was closed by networking facilitated by a drink.
Downloads
It is worthwhile noting that 3IF has published the presentations of the day on-line (*), that Arthur D Little provides studies and insights on their website, and that Movilitas has published a free downloadable downloadable e-book on its lean manufacturing execution system framework. Information by ARC is available at www.arcweb.com and our blog sites: www.industrial-iot.com, www.automation2.com and www.logisticsviewpoints.com.
*) To download presentations from www.3if.be create an account, navigate to the presentation, click right and download manually.