Felix. Hi. Big hand of applause to you.
Hello gents!
I'm gonna take that seat here.
We're gonna do a mixed round here.
So may I please start with you
guys to introduce yourself?
I have 3 gents on the sofa.
That's great. Felix.
Hi, I'm Felix Stieber.
And I'm Business Development Manager
for Factory Automation Services.
Business Development Manager.
We're gonna talk about that later, Pierre.
All right.
Yeah, I'm Pierre,
Pierre Sugar and I'm heading
this fantastic connectivity team.
I already heard a colleague,
you have a large fan base here by the way,
because one guy said you know
that this is the best team what
you're going to have on stage.
So definitely, definitely you can be proud.
And Ramin.
My name is Ramin Ghanipanah and I'm also
Business Development Manager for
Industrial Connectivity Services.
Perfect. So now we know who's who.
Let's get into details.
Now we're gonna talk about this
coffee machine a little later.
Let's get first started with your challenge.
Can you explain what is meant
by Industrial Connectivity
Services in five sentences?
Yeah, I mean,
five sentences might be a little bit of
a challenge, but let's give it a try.
So with Industrial Connectivity Services,
we make it possible to collect
and connect every data from,
let's say actuators, sensors, Plcs,
but also from IT systems and forward them to,
for example, Industrial Edge,
the Siemens cloud infrastructure,
but also hyperscalers like AWS
or Microsoft Azure, you name it.
True.
And it's literally any source,
because also the age and the manufacturer
of the machines don't matter for us.
We offer a holistic approach
with state-of-the-art hardware,
innovative software,
and one hell of a connectivity
team behind it.
One hell of a connectivity team actually.
That triggers something when you say
any source which you meant at the
SPS where you guys were on stage.
SPS is a big fair on automation,
which is taking place in
Nuremberg every year.
In November,
you guys were brave enough to say when
I asked you that you would connect a
coffee machine, that you could do it.
You boldly said yes without having any proof.
Now let's get into details.
In the teaser video in the beginning,
you stated that you could connect
a coffee machine.
The rumors are, you really did.
Of course.
And it was a wonderful idea, right?
I mean, coffee, Amore.
It gives us energy.
We love coffee and we love connectivity.
So we brought it together and now
we have a connected coffee machine
where we can showcase connectivity
and we can have a nice chat.
And yeah, it's on the booth 68,
so drop by and have a chat
and share the love.
OK, so it's at our boost to get that right.
It's straight across #68.
I'm gonna drop by there to get my coffee.
In short,
which is definitely needed on
a highly exhausting day here.
So what is the benefit of
a connected coffee machine?
Can you explain that?
Who wants to take that?
So a coffee machine,
first of all is just another machine.
Now we're collecting data,
we're visualizing data,
pre processing data.
And if you go to your coffee machine,
what do you expect
if you press the button? The coffee flow-
That I don't get the alert:
Need water, need beans, need clean.
Right.
And this is actually the service use case
we also provide over there that
you need the information when
to refill the water or refill
the coffee beans and that can be
easily transformed to an industrial
application like a production machine.
So. What we're doing,
so we're not so much interested
that the coffee is flowing,
We are more interested in how
many parts have been produced.
And we're also collecting the data,
visualizing data,
calculating KPIs like OEE KPIs,
production KPIs and the like. Absolutely.
And this increased performance is
only possible when you have this
traceability and also transparency,
so.
We talk a lot about these use cases
like predictive maintenance and so on,
but it's only possible when you
have the right data and also here
connectivity is the lever for that.
So how exactly did you manage
to connect the machine?
We used the Brownfield Connectivity
Gateway and this Brownfield
Connectivity Gateway enables you to
establish a connection from anywhere
in the shop floor from any machine
with a higher level information
system like industrial edge.
And there we visualize the data
with the edge app Performance Insight.
And then you go,
you have the transparency on all the
relevant parameter of a barista,
in our case like pressure,
water and grind and then you can start
optimizing and make the perfect product.
So you say it definitely would also work
on the field like connecting real machines?
Absolutely.
That sounds pretty good.
Yeah. Any comments on that?
So yes, of course.
So he was talking about Brownfield
Connectivity Gateway.
It's not always necessary to use
the Brownfield Connectivity
Gateway for each and every use
case even though you could.
But I think this is the beauty of
Industrial Connectivity Services.
We're not bound to a specific
product for connectivity.
We're rather bound to the connectivity
use case of the customer.
And just imagine you're the customer,
you want to decide upon a cloud strategy.
You want to run all your
applications in the cloud.
Then we would rather suggest IoT 2050
which is an embedded industrial PC.
It also collects data.
It also forwards data over a
secured Internet connection.
It can do that encrypted and it
comes with a lot of variety of
interfaces for all this different
automation devices.
And also another option would
be the industrial edge,
for example if you have SIMATIC IPC 227 E.
So you can use and utilize that for
the whole industrial edge ecosystem.
So we can use it.
It has all the built in functionalities
and also integrated connectivity
and also works in harsh environments
like for example
your kitchen. Definitely! If you
want to integrate it there with
the connectivity solutions there,
but you have all the benefits.
So integrated connectivity,
harsh environments also centrally
managed firmware options.
So this is everything built in.
That's one more reason to visit our booth,
right? I mean edge connectivity,
cloud connectivity, brownfield connectivity,
we showcase it all there at booth 68.
So you already mentioned that
you can avoid unplanned,
really high costly downtime moments.
Are there any further benefits which
come along thanks to connectivity?
Definitely - imagine you want to
digitize your existing factory.
So you have machines there that run nicely,
but maybe they're old and you
cannot connect them.
So what are your options?
Get new machines?
Retrofit, taking out all the old automation,
replacing with state-of-the-art?
Quite an effort,
but thanks to our solution,
you don't need to do that.
We can equip your machines with the
necessary hardware and software components
and make them able to communicate,
and by that you can keep your
machines and that is saving you time,
money and it's sustainable.
And if I may add,
so based on the data,
again we can optimize the production
and the workflows.
So there are also further benefits.
So we are using our
standardized connectivity,
ensuring their availability and everything
embedded into a digitalization solution.
All right,
you've got me in the game now I
have a clear understanding about
the benefits and why it's so
important more or less to to really
organize this in in your production.
In regards of our customers,
different industries I suppose mean
different connectivity requirements,
different challenges for you.
How do you cater this?
How do you normally procede in order
to cater for the different industries?
Normally and the first thing is
always listening to the customer,
what are their goals and needs and what
do they really want to do with the data.
And when we have really understood
the customer requirements,
we make a plan - a connectivity concept and this
is done by our most important by our people.
We have excellent connectivity experts
who know, based on the customer needs,
what hardware,
what connectors,
what software,
what services fit best to the customer
problems and they choose whatever fits best.
And by that all our technologies in the
company and the ones we bring from our side
can contribute into one joint approach.
Connectivity solutions.
So, but the key is it's not
only hardware and software,
it's about having the right partner,
a partner with a global footprint,
a partner with a long lasting
automation experience and with the
right people who can combine that:
Automation Know-how,
Connectivity Know-how
with out-of-the-box
thinking and who has all of that?
Hm, I wonder, I wonder why,
I wonder who.
Well,
Siemens does and that's why we as Siemens
are the right partner for connectivity.
Well,
it does all look and sound great in theory,
but let's get into practice now.
What's happening next?
What do we do really when
you have looked in all your
data and in the flows? Yeah.
Then we go into implementation like
after that what Felix just described.
So using our standardized
industrial connectors like the
Brownfiled Connectivity Gateway for example,
and then integrate that,
so like grabbing the data from
the shop floor forward them to
either higher level IT systems,
could be MES systems,
SCADA systems or whatever is in there.
And it's also important that
the plant operators,
they have the freedom to choose
what happens with the data,
how it will be processed.
So this we will also ensure
during this implementation phase.
And then? Then comes
Connectivity Operations.
Now this is a topic that's
often overlooked because you
now have your nicely implemented
connectivity implementation.
And now imagine again,
you're my customer,
you've digitized your
important production process.
So a digitized process works
with software definitely.
And what happens if the data is not flowing?
The data is not coming to the software.
Software was working on data,
software is not working.
If the software is not working,
the process is not working and ultimately
the production comes to standstill.
And with Connectivity Operations we
really closed this gap because this is
often overlooked in other applications
or in other offerings for connectivity.
We're monitoring the connectivity
and the data flow to ensure
that the process is working and
digitalization finally is working.
It does sound good.
You have convinced me.
I mean,
it was a bit more than five sentences
or let's say five phrases that you
guys took in regards of I know
that you guys like challenges.
What about going for instead of five
sentences that you guys take three?
No problem. OK, "No problem" was one.
No connectivity means no digital
transformation.
Christine: Only your imagination is the limit.
And finally we can connect
anything with everything.