WHAT IS INDUSTRY 4.0?

Products tailored exactly to customer requirements but manufactured under industrial conditions: this is one of the main ideas behind Industry 4.0, and one of the greatest opportunities arising from digitalization.

For the very first time, companies will be in a position to work incredibly closely with customers and remain highly flexible to their needs – all while profiting from familiar industrial structures and the cost and efficiency benefits they entail. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) plays an incredibly significant role in this context.

A return to individuality

After an era dominated by low-cost, mass-produced products, end customers will see digitalization as a return to individuality – a return to custom-made items that are more or less unique, similar to products made by a traditional craftsman. This is made possible by closely aligning internal company processes with the available information technology across the whole product lifecycle, also taking account of the entire supplier chain. This is exactly where PLM comes in.

THE ROLE OF PRODUCT LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT (PLM)

Product Lifecycle Management links disciplines such as CAD, CAE, CAM, MES, ERP, and CRM to the items that generate the most money for a manufacturing company: its products. A professional PLM system covers all the stages a product goes through in its lifetime and where it is regularly subject to modification.

This includes market research, product design, pre-development, series development, testing and production, sales, after-sales services, and even recycling. PLM is therefore an essential discipline in digitalization and a vital tool with which to enter the age of Industry 4.0.

Challenges in the context of Industry 4.0

Enormous volumes of data
A large number of system discontinuities and data silos
The need to carefully consider the working environment and each person’s abilities
The need to stay as close as possible to the customer during each stage of the process
The need for forward-looking machine planning and maintenance

QUALITY

With Industry 4.0, all good solutions begin with a clear understanding of quality. Our numerous partnerships with established system providers have proven to be incredibly positive in this regard, as they’ve enabled us to develop a detailed understanding of their powerful solutions.

A further factor with regards to quality is our position as a technology scout, working together with a variety of specialists and integrating their applications into our customers’ environments. We regularly test promising developments, also in the form of prototypes, which means we are already familiar with a number of future technologies.