The Next Generation of Industry, Workers, and Cities [Videos]

It's been an exciting few weeks here at LNS Research. As the manufacturing and industrial spaces continue to move forward, our analysts have been traveling around the world seeing it happen in real time. 

This week's roundup looks into several articles on major technology and industry trends, including the consumerization of IT and building smarter cities. It also shares insights from our analysts' trips to Hannover Messe 2014 and other events.

And remember, as always, if you're interested in submitting a story to our weekly roundup, you can email it to me here and our team will review it.

Introducing the Leapfrog Project: Building Next-Generation Eco-Imagineers in Emerging Countries

Zoe Bezpalko, ECO-Design Specialist for Dassault Systèmes, introduced the LeapFrog Project currently underway in Vietnam and explains how the 3DExperience platform is lending a hand.

But for a little background, let’s first take a step back and ask, what exactly does leapfrogging mean for sustainability? For those of you who haven’t familiarized yourself with this initiative of turning developing cities into green cities, the below TED Talk provides an excellent foundation (leapfrogging explained around 8:00).

So, why Vietnam? Due to climate change, Vietnam is labeled as extreme risk with drastic effects on the country’s people and environment. By partnering with SPIN (Sustainable Product Innovation, video below), 40+ Vietnamese manufactured products were redesigned to reduce their environmental impacts from 10-80% off their initial carbon footprint. Learn how & why.

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Building the Future

Last week, our analyst Mike Roberts made his way out to Worcester, MA, to The Atlantic’s “Building the Future” event. The event included a number of local community members and notable speakers to the likes of Boston’s Governor, Deval Patrick, Massachusetts Congress Representative Jim McGovern, and, among others, Siemens PLM CEO, Chuck Grindstaff. Focus was on the combined efforts of industry and education, and what’s being done to drive more interest and innovation both today and within the next generation of America’s manufacturers. 

Also highlighted at the event was a major donation—$660 million worth—of manufacturing software from a Siemens-owned company that builds steel mills in Worcester to Massachusetts community colleges, universities, and vocational high schools. 

If you feel so inclined, a video of the entire event can be found here:

Insights into Hannover Messe 2014

Several weeks ago, LNS Research had the chance to attend Hannover Messe 2014. With the announcement of Industrie 4.0 happening at the 2013 show, it became immediately clear to attendees that this was not a one-year phenomenon. In fact, nearly ever exhibitor showcased “Industrie 4.0” capabilities.

In some cases, the moniker seemed to be more marketing fluff than substantive innovation, but for the majority of companies there has been serious investment over the past year. These companies are also clearly gearing up for the future, with  many predicting the runway for Industrie 4.0 technology to be 10-20+ years.

Siemens, in the Industry Automation Hall, presented an impressive integrated story across software, automation, and next generation machine-to-machine technologies. Other notable vendors included PTC with the ThingWorx acquisition being touted as driving new innovation in product and service models as well as SAP with its demo of an electronic assembly line with machine-to-machine communication and item-level traceability, all driven from ERP through ME, MII, and PCo.

For those who were not able to attend the event, the 2015 event is highly recommended. There simply is no better place in the world where it is as “cool” to geek out on manufacturing.

SAP Manufacturing Industry Forum 2014

Last week, our team had the opportunity to attend the SAP Manufacturing Industry Forum in Chicago which was well-attended with IT and Operations leaders from across the manufacturing industry. Topics spanned many critical areas of manufacturing and were in support of Industrie 4.0, including: innovation, operations, EH&S, Energy Management, and maintenance.

As compared to previous years, we were happy to see SAP beginning to build in many of its homegrown and acquired technologies from across the portfolio into the ME, MII, PCo stack (which unfortunately have been years behind other areas of the SAP). These new integrations include, but are not limited to: the visual enterprise (Right Hemisphere), event stream processing (Sybase), and HANA (homegrown).

All of these provide SAP the opportunity to better serve the needs of manufacturers with a next-generation user experience on the shop floor that is 3D, real-time, mobile, and intuitive. We are looking forward to the next releases of MII and ME and seeing if SAP is successful on working with customers and executing on the future vision.

The Consumerization of IT: Next Generation Manufacturing Software

We live in a multi-tasking world and the line between work and personal activities continues to blur. Technology plays a role as our everyday activities have come to incorporate interactive displays, live feeds and Internet accessibility, and, in addition to changing the way we relate to each other, it’s having a noticeable effect on enterprise operations. In this article, Greg Goodwin takes a look at how the consumerization of IT is having a significant affect both in how enterprise manufacturing technology is designed, and how organizations are restructuring their IT policies.

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