Quo Vadis? – Industrial Companies on the Way to the Digital Age

Industry 4.0 is a keyword that has been used increasingly in the past few years as a measure of modern fabrication. But what exactly is Industry 4.0 and how can it help industrial companies work more efficiently? To find out, IHK Lower Bavaria invited participants from a variety of industries to Flottweg in Vilsbiburg on November 17, 2015. Flottweg, with its intelligently networked fabrication, is considered one of the pioneers of modern production control.

The requirements for modern production are largely the same regardless of industry. It has to be ever faster, more flexible, and more cost-effective. The goal is intelligent production. What this kind of production can look like is what a total of 35 participants saw at an IHK event at Flottweg. The list of participants was illustrious. In addition to corporate consultants and production managers, there were also a few CEOs at the event.

 

The lecture series was opened by Karl-Heinz Grebisz, Director of Flottweg SE, and Hans Graf, Vice-President of IHK Lower Bavaria. How companies can prepare for the road to Industry 4.0 was outlined to participants by Dr. Michael Schwarzer from Otto Wassermann AG.  The practical part of the lecture series was handled by Flottweg production manager Martin Jarosch. He explained how Flottweg could use networking of 15 production machines (with and without tool circuits) to increase their own productivity by up to 70%. Flottweg was also able to double its produced unit count with only 30% more employees.

 

Armed with this information, participants then took a tour of Production and investigated Flottweg Production in detail. Reactions to what they had seen and heard were thoroughly positive: "The topic of Industry 4.0 is still not very specific in many areas. Today, at Flottweg, we saw how it can be implemented. It will be very interesting to implement this in our own network," explained the project lead for the sensor cluster, Josef Moser.

 

Contact

Nils Engelke   
PR & Communications Manager

Flottweg SE  
Industriestraße 6-8   
84137 Vilsbiburg     
Germany

Phone: +49 (8741) 301 - 1577   
Fax: +49 (8741) 301 - 303   
E-Mail: enge (at) flottweg.com