„The time is now “

Rohitashwa Pant, Chief Digital Officer at ANDRITZ Schuler, believes that investment in digitalisation is particularly appropriate in a difficult economic environment

Digitalisation has been somewhat quiet recently. In Germany, the term made headlines because the new federal government created a separate ministry for it; before, the Ministry of Transport was responsible for it (for whatever reason). Now one could make fun of fax machines, which are still part of the basic equipment in many administrations. But what is the actual situation in mechanical engineering?

Until the middle of the last decade, digitalisation in the form we understand it today was virtually unheard of in the industry. Anyone who threw the term "digital twin" at a veteran engineer from the research and development department was often met with an uncomprehending frown. Later, it was said that Industry 4.0 was nothing new and had already existed as cyber-physical systems for many years.
 

That's true, and yet it was only gradually that the first machine manufacturers dared to come out of hiding and present tangible solutions for their customers - even if these applications were often still limited to monitoring processes and processing data; some brave souls even developed apps for smartphones. Hardly any of this still exists today, and rightly so.

The initially widespread scepticism quickly gave way to Industry 4.0 euphoria, which was not conducive to the quality of the products and nobody wanted to hear anymore. Expectations skyrocketed, but it soon became clear that customers did not want to hand over their machine data - at least not under the security conditions of the time.
 

And a little later, it also became clear that the solutions also had to work across systems because, for example, an automotive supplier does not usually only operate systems from one manufacturer. Admittedly, it took a while for this realisation to take hold in the mechanical engineering industry and for companies to finally come to terms with the urgently needed cooperation and open interfaces.

At the same time, there was another challenge that was at least as great: the internal cultural change that digitalisation made necessary. The old mechanical engineers and the young software developers, who were now flooding in en masse, were worlds apart. The working methods could not be more different.
 

On the one hand, there is the conscientious designer who only makes technical innovations public when they are 100 per cent mature and, in the best case, have already proven themselves in practice; on the other hand, there is the experimental programmer who sometimes launches a half-finished app on the market - at least that was the preconception...

And where are we today? If you look at the hype cycle, we have both passed the peak of exaggerated expectations and left the valley of disappointment behind us and are therefore likely to be on the path to enlightenment, and in some cases also on the plateau of productivity - in forming technology for sure.
 

In the press shop, where we feel particularly at home, it is just as important as in any other machine park to keep availability as high as possible: The systems have to run so that they pay for themselves and our customers' customers receive the parts in the agreed quality on time. Every minute of unplanned downtime costs money.

If, for example, the die that gives the parts their shape breaks, it is less about the material damage caused (even if this can easily run into the six-figure euro range) and more about the weeks or months of delay before production can be resumed due to the lengthy repair process.
 

So what could be more obvious than having the die continuously monitored by a camera and thus automatically detecting even the smallest deviation from the target state that could lead to damage - such as a glove that an operator has accidentally left inside?

And what if the die could be designed with the help of a forming simulation so that it not only lasts longer but can also produce more parts per minute? Or if the entire press line is put into operation virtually so that production can start several months earlier?

All of this is already common practice in press shops around the world. But there are also systems for forming technology that have been doing their job more or less unchanged for several decades. There is huge potential here to not only increase productivity through retrofittable digital solutions, but also to improve energy efficiency.

Here too, the first step is to record and monitor the individual consumers, on the basis of which numerous optimisation measures can then be derived. In many places, the first is the introduction of standby mode, which is still not a matter of course in non-productive phases.
 

Economically challenging times are ideal for considering an investment in the modernisation of machinery - on the one hand because many systems are currently at a standstill anyway due to a lack of orders, and on the other hand because the economy will pick up again at some point and an unplanned standstill would come at the worst possible time.

The prerequisite for this is, of course, support at management level. There should be a willingness to embrace digitalisation, including the necessary budgeting, and endless fundamental discussions should be avoided if at all possible - they lead nowhere. It is just as important to realise that you don't have to develop everything yourself, but instead rely on partnerships.

The good news is that there is no one right time to start digitisation - everything is in such a state of flux that even a major lead can be overtaken by competitors in no time at all. On the other hand, this means that you cannot rest on your laurels and must always stay on the ball.
 

When time-honoured mechanical engineering companies therefore adopt a start-up mentality, it sounds very good at first. However, experience shows that it is almost impossible to combine the one with the other. That alone is not an obstacle, you just have to be aware of it. The main thing is to build up new skills, by whatever means. What made companies successful in the past simply no longer counts today.

So if things have gone quiet around digitalisation at the moment, it is hopefully only because work is currently being done behind the scenes at full speed to implement it - at least in mechanical engineering.