Features Industry 4.0 & Smart Manufacturing
Siemens expands its Industry 4.0 portfolio for Hannover Messe 2019

March 29, 2019 – Siemens will be exhibiting a host of smart solutions for Industry 4.0 during Hannover Messe, the world’s largest technology fair, as part of the theme “Digital Enterprise – Thinking industry further!”.

Over an exhibition space of around 4,000 square metres in Hall 9, Siemens will be showcasing these solutions with an array of new additions to its Digital Enterprise offering designed to enable the digital transformation of the discrete and process industries. 

One highlight is the chemical industry showcase featuring the totally virtual representation of a greenfield plant complete with laboratory, automation and control technology enabling the sustainable and environmentally responsible production of polyamide made from biomass.

The automotive industry showcase demonstrates the use of digital twins, additive manufacturing, innovative robotics and automatic guided vehicles to enable flexible, efficient e-car and battery production.

Among the other highlights:

Software
Product innovations showcased in Hannover include the latest version of the NX software, which has been enhanced with machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. These new features can predict next steps and update the user interface to help users more efficiently use software to increase productivity. Siemens will present its own E-CAD functionality for mechatronic machine and production line engineering in the form of its new “Electrical Design” module.

Siemens will showcase a number of new software solutions at the fair for cloud and edge computing designed to enable data analysis and machine learning, and to boost the performance of machine tools. Also featured at the fair will be the integrated use of software and control technology for additive manufacturing in combination with machine tools and modern robotics.

Process control
A new process control system allows expert knowledge to be deployed anywhere, any time, and the Simatic PCS 7 hardware means that customers are already ideally prepared to work with the new system today.

Also featured at the fair will be an innovative drive and control concept developed by Siemens and Festo involving integration of the multi-carrier system into the Bosch Rexroth transfer system. This allows production processes in fields such as battery manufacture to be designed for greater flexibility and efficiency.

Digitalization also has a central role to play in the field of drive technology. With its IoT digitalization offering Sidrive IQ, Siemens will be presenting apps and services designed to optimize drives by linking to MindSphere. Additional highlights will include the G120X product family aimed at the water/wastewater, pump and fan industry, and the new servo drive system Simatic Micro-Drive for the safety extra-low voltage range.

Digital twins
The company is also showcasing PlantSight, a system which draws data from several different sources to enable rapid access to previously unattainable information. Synchronizing the physical plant with the relevant engineering data enables the creation of a digital twin of the manufacturing process. This allows plant operators to count on a high level of trustworthiness and information quality, enabling continuous operational readiness and greater reliability.

Cloud and the edge
Another Siemens innovation at the fair will be the new CloudConnect products designed to enable data transmission from the field level to a variety of different cloud platforms.

Siemens will be featuring a use case in Hannover that is already in practice at the company’s Amberg factory. The integration of edge computing, artificial intelligence and MindSphere has already proven invaluable for quality inspection of PCBs by X-ray equipment during the manufacture of Simatic products, allowing the number of final inspection processes to be drastically reduced. Product innovations also include a new generation of high-end industrial PCs incorporating eighth generation Intel processors.

Energy
Siemens will be showcasing innovations for power grids alongside solutions for a smart and sustainable power supply to industrial and infrastructure facilities. Visitors to the booth will be able to experience the seamless integration of power distribution into digital automation environments using new, smart systems and tools – some of them with a direct link to MindSphere.

Hannover Messe runs April 1-5, 2019 in Hannover, Germany.