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Paradigm shifts and fundamental changes

A 30 percent increase in productivity and up to 85 percent less energy consumption: This is the tremendous potential unleashed by additive manufacturing (AM) applications. This fascinating technology is on the verge of widespread industrial adoption. It represents nothing less than a paradigm shift in part design, manufacturing technology, and innovative business models. AM can provide lighter, performance-optimized, and potentially cheaper industrial products that can even reduce a company’s footprint – along with enhanced operational flexibility, speed-to-market, higher plant productivity, and supply chain resiliency.

To realize these expectations, AM relies on the application of powerful digital tools and automation technologies. These ensure a seamlessly integrated end-to-end workflow that efficiently takes the AM user from an idea to a validated design all the way to a final end product. With simulation tools along the process chain, even first-time-right printing is achievable.

Creating a seamless digital chain

Siemens isn’t just an experienced user of additive manufacturing; the company also provides the necessary tools for others to leverage the power of AM. With the Digital Enterprise portfolio, Siemens offers holistic solutions containing CAD, CAM, and CAE software for designing and validating parts and automation technologies that enable machine builders to deliver state-of-the-art 3D printers or peripheral machines.

At designated global technology hubs, Siemens is demonstrating the power of this portfolio to its customers and co-creating new applications with regional ecosystems of partners, customers, and academia. Their shared goal is to industrialize additive manufacturing by enabling the ecosystem to create, produce, and use additive applications at scale.

Connectivity and Edge

The Internet of Things (IoT) stands for the seamless integration of the physical world with the digital world. Like Web sites, physical things are connected and become part of the Internet. They share their data, and they expose their capabilities to other devices, applications, and end-users. The IoT is growing at a tremendous rate, and billions of devices are already connected. This creates fascinating opportunities for transparency, new services, and innovative business models.

Beyond the public domain, this development has enormous potential for the industrial sector.

High expectations and no sacrifices

Customers in these sectors have high expectations for their systems’ security, safety, and reliability. They’re striving to transform and expand their businesses through digitalization – but without sacrificing quality or endangering data protection and business-critical intellectual property.

So the IoT paradigm needs to be amended with industrial-grade properties like real-time capabilities, and safety and security features for industrial applications.

Seamless connectivity

Direct and unlimited access to devices and their data is a core element of any Industrial IoT (IIoT) application. All IIoT devices and systems must be connected seamlessly from the sensor level to enterprise platforms and clouds. Semantic technologies and industrial communication standards come into play to ensure easy integration and interoperability. The connectivity technology spectrum ranges from mobile communication like industrial 5G to advanced local network technologies like time-sensitive networking (TSN).

Industrial edge computing

Factories, traffic networks, and utility grids are more complex than connected light bulbs and fitness trackers. Systems in these domains typically consist of interacting devices that require supervision and management. They’re often large and highly distributed. They may be critical infrastructures whose failure can have enormous economic implications and even endanger people.

Digitalization in these areas means real-time insight, fast data analysis, and intelligent decisions that are highly performant, near-instantaneous, and close to the process.

Edge computing is the answer to resolving these challenges. Computing power can be allocated and managed across all levels. Applications – whether they’re for smart sensors or complex AI-based algorithms – can be downloaded and distributed directly to the point of execution. Updates, configurations, and changes are made during runtime, saving costs and engineering efforts.

IIoT future – Today

We’re prepared for what’s around the corner, where the convergence of OT and IT will determine the entire technology landscape. Whole industrial verticals will streamline their processes with IIoT technologies and embrace the advantages of flexibility, time to market, and cost reduction. Future industrial environments feature autonomous machines, modular production equipment, and collaborating self-aware systems.

Cybersecurity & Trust

In the digital age, Cybersecurity and Trust technologies are a prerequisite for organizations to safeguard their critical infrastructure, protect sensitive information, ensure business continuity, and enable new services and business models that extend beyond traditional trust boundaries.

A fundamental differentiator for Siemens’ digital business

Mastering these technologies for our own company and our customers in an industrial environment is a competitive advantage in a growing business field that’s driven increasingly IoT, M2M, Industrie 4.0, and global supply chains – all areas that demand an integration of operational and business systems across company and trust boundaries. Our unique combination of technical expertise in Cybersecurity & Trust and the profound domain expertise places Siemens in an ideal position to be both a market and a thought leader.

We’re driven by purpose and are open for collaborative innovation of future technologies. We create value for our customers by offering products and solutions that meet the most demanding security requirements, standards, and regulations. They ensure the integrity and availability of critical infrastructures by offering protection from industrial espionage and denial of service attacks. Trust technology allows information to be verified and value to be exchanged without having to rely on a third-party authority. Cryptographic systems and consensus protocols ensure that shared data is only modified by agreement and that the recorded history of transactions is impenetrable. This multi-party business logic may be executed on top of a blockchain system.

Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence comprises a set of programming techniques that was inspired by natural learning. AI enables computer systems to solve problems that can’t be managed using traditional programming: typically, this means problems that require the accurate interpretation of data, context, and environment. Examples include reading and interpreting text, driving cars, recognizing images, and controlling industrial machines.

Applying AI in an industrial context

Data analytics in particular has become very important for Siemens, because digitalization and IoT environments generate huge volumes of data that no human could ever fully analyze and interpret – but AI is up to the task and therefore allows us to get the most from our data. Read more

More sophisticated AI techniques like deep learning and reinforcement learning have also developed into the cornerstones of industrial AI. They enable programs and machines to find solutions by themselves, which offers a new universe of possibilities for autonomous or collaborative machines. Read more

Siemens has been working in the areas of data analytics and AI for over 30 years and has a proven track record of generating business by successfully applying AI in a variety of industrial contexts.

Power Electronics

Power electronics make electric power available at any time, at any place, and in an application-appropriate form.

Power electronics are everywhere

Power electronics efficiently convert, switch, and control electric power wherever electricity is generated, transmitted, distributed, and consumed. New applications like renewable sources of electric power, electric cars and e-charging, battery storage, DC infrastructure, and autonomous robotics are the mass markets for industrial power electronics. In many cases, the requirements for their performance, functionality, sustainability, serviceability, costs, installation space, and weight are constantly increasing and the innovation cycle time is decreasing. In addition, power electronics are the data access and control point in the Internet of Things (IoT) and its derivatives: the Industrial IoT and the Internet of Energy.

We’re at the forefront of the transition to a digitalized converter-centric power infrastructure that comprises grid and building infrastructure, industrial environments, and personal living spaces.

Power electronics are crucial for Siemens

Industrial applications, smart grids, building infrastructure, and rail-based mobility are all examples of highly attractive markets where power electronics play a central role. Many new technologies and novel business concepts have emerged in recent years, from wide band-gap power semiconductors to IoT and smart services. They’re allowing Siemens to generate unique customer value in many different areas and defend, expand, and enter markets.

Automation

Whether it’s factories, buildings, process plants, or transportation systems, automation technology has always been the key driver of productivity. And the future of automation offers much more: The goal can be called “automating the automation.”

From mass production to flexible factories

Take the manufacturing domain as an example: The era when we had to choose between cheap, standardized, mass-produced products and customized, very expensive ones is nearly over. Production machines are very good at performing the same repetitive tasks at a high speed, but even today it’s still time-consuming for automation experts to reconfigure them.

Digitalization and the related emerging technologies – like artificial intelligence, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), digital twins, edge, and the cloud – brought about a profound change and will enable the creation of a new class of more flexible and easy-to-use automation solutions with a significantly reduced engineering effort.

We are on the way to automate the automation

• AI-enabled systems are aware of their environment. They’re capable of finding solutions autonomously without needing an expert to pre-configure them.
• Using open, prefabricated (and pre-engineered) modularized units with integrated and autonomous automation (like manufacturing cells and process models) facilitates a “plug-and-operate” system and fast, flexible commissioning.
• Augmented reality and smart operator assistants create new possibilities for virtual commissioning and support the collection of plant data in real time to provide information exactly where it’s needed.
• In manufacturing processes, applying AI technologies in quality control can help identify error patterns even during operation, which saves money.
• Sensor fusion technologies allow autonomous rail and road vehicles to navigate safely and efficiently.
• Building automation systems can be installed and commissioned with no deep automation and programming knowledge.

Software Systems and Processes

The CCT Software Systems & Processes is mastering the digital transformation at scale by focusing on research, pre-development, and the transfer of innovative software technology.

Importance for Siemens

In the industrial software field, Siemens has been an important driving force behind innovation for more than 20 years, and the company intends to perform the same role when it comes to the digitalization of industry.

Siemens aims to be a leader in shaping digitalization software for facility management, automation systems, power plants, and signaling centers. Company Core Technology Software Systems and Processes is therefore of decisive importance for the future of business at Siemens by supporting and accelerating the digital transformation of the company and its solution portfolio with innovative software technologies. This team of selected software experts is tasked with exploring and building the tools and methods that will enable the Business Units to develop their crucial digitalization software. The CCT SSP is also responsible for defining the federated and open technical architecture of our digital business platform Siemens Xcelerator.

User Experience

User expects easy interactions with our products. How do customers use Siemens products? What features do they need? And more importantly, what features are redundant and can be eliminated? User Experience (UX) focuses on the users, their expectations, and how they interact with our products. We’re working to acquire a deep understanding of users: what they need, what they value, and their abilities and limitations.

Introduction

“As customers gravitate more and more toward digital solutions, companies are prioritizing the user experience (UX). Why this response? Because the quality of the user experience can make or break a business, and the range from bad to good is even broader in the digital medium than in the physical world: from abysmal to magical.” Forrester Research, 2021

Importance for Siemens

Siemens plans to become a UX leader in the industrial sector over the next decade.

The customer’s experience with a product or service will become a key differentiator for us. We’re now in a position to create paradigms of interaction and value generation for our products and for the industrial IoT experience and therefore shape the markets in our favor. Investing in the user experience is also essential to identifying the key target areas and opportunities for every one of our solutions, services, and products.

Siemens is transforming into a digital company, and IoT is key to this transformation.

The digital transformation requires a strong focus on both the user’s needs and our business objectives. A successful IoT means that we identify the most appropriate offerings for the customer in addition to the right innovative technology. One of the more challenging digital transformation efforts is to align user value with business value – which is one of the key areas the User Experience team is focusing on.