The glorious sunshine of Linz in late June was the perfect backdrop of warmth and optimism that pervaded ENGEL’s Inject 4.0 Forum last week.
ENGEL inject 4.0
Taking place at the Design Centre, where the injection moulding machinery giant’s enormous Symposium of 2015 took place, the Inject 4.0 conference was on a smaller scale due to the huge amount of activity at ENGEL this year and ran alongside a similar event hosted by recycling machinery manufacturer EREMA nearby. Featuring thought leadership presentations, machinery demonstrations and a fabulous gala dinner event (ENGEL really knows how to treat its friends), here’s what we learned from the Inject 4.0 Forum.
CEO Dr Stefan Engleder was the first speaker, welcoming delegates to a special forum that focuses on digital transformation and the journey ENGEL is taking its customers on to digitalisation and adding a knowledgeable digitalisation service to its injection moulding machinery manufacturing offering, securing its technology in the factory of the future.
Dr Michael Schachler from Yungfeng Automotive Interiors, which supplies all the big automotive manufacturers, identified the fact that various systems all need to be linked in order for parts of the business to be operating efficiently. For Yungfeng, this is hundreds of systems and huge quantities of data, which is why upgrading to smart factory technologies is so crucial. It is now essential for smart factory operators to have complete control of an international network of systems, while having somewhere to store and sort all of this data to ensure the technology is working at optimum level.
He noted that cobots, or collaborative robots, are part of Yungfeng’s plan for improving efficiency.
Robots and humans working alongside each other, as opposed to automation leading to the obsolescence of people in the factory, was the recurring theme of Inject 4.0.
From selling machines, to providing service
Engleder said that at the last ENGEL meeting in 2015, industry 4.0 was much more of an ideal than it is today. Now, industry 4.0 is made possible and is already generating quantifiable data proving its worth in advancing outdated systems via ENGEL’s inject 4.0 technology.
ENGEL inject 4.0
ENGEL CEO Dr Stefan Engleder.
“Inject 4.0 is meant to use the full potential of the injection moulding machine for our customers,” the CEO said, adding that the concept has changed ENGEL’s entire business model to some extent. “In the past we were focused on selling products and machines, but now we are interested in after-sales services and maintenance contracts. For some time we’ve been digitising our services.”
Inject 4.0 technology is flexible and can be used across different layers of the marketplace, providing flexibility and ENGEL leadership to a much broader range of users. This horizontal platform opens up connectivity and data gathering across the production chain.
Half a dozen various speakers welcomed the Inject 4.0 concept and how it applies to their business, including Wolfgang Frohner, CEO of TIG, who introduced the notion that the factory of the future would be like one man and his dog – where the man feeds the dog, and the dog keeps the man from interfering with the machine. Jürgen Miethlinger of the Johannes Kapler University Institute of Polymer Extrusion and Compounding discussed how the LIT smart factory incorporates lightweight engineering, recycling and recompounding into a working facility. Uwe Herbert of Ypsomed discussed megatrends in manufacturing that tie industry 4.0 capabilities together including smart factories, additional functionalities, affordability and personalisation. Finally, Daniel Stuart of CNH Industrial tied all the above together into a working example of how industry 4.0 can be utilised for manufacturing farming equipment.
It's really happening
In a meeting with the press, CSO Christoph Steger joined Engleder in discussing what Inject 4.0 means to them now it has been developed into a fully-fledged business model for the injection moulding technology juggernaut. They likened the Inject 4.0 experience to choosing apps via an app store, allowing producers to select the functionalities they need, and collect data across a horizontal platform as opposed to a vertical one – e.g. just the IMM.
ENGEL inject 4.0
ENGEL CSO Dr Christoph Steger.
“This is the next step for industry 4.0 because everything otherwise looks a little bit vague,” said Engleder. “’Is it really happening’ used to be the big question, but now it is more like ‘will it be horizontal?’.”
“We want full control of our ecosystem and at the end of the day it has to be easy to use. We want to sell the best IMMs and we have to look at serviced to utilise the full potential of our machines that are direct to the customer,” he added, noting that Inject 4.0 is not necessarily about making money, rather securing business.
So what is driving plastics processors to invest in Inject 4.0 or any industry 40 technology? Dr Steger explained that a lack of skilled workers is the primary factory, but in turn the systems need skilled people to ensure the technology is being monitored.
“We’re entering an era of change,” he said insisting that jobs will change but there will not be fewer opportunities in plastics processing because of industry 4.0.
Similarly, new opportunities will arise which had not been predicted. Steger used the growing demand for HGV driver and couriers as e-commerce places a greater need for logistics on the currently under-resourced delivery marketplace.
“We have to build trust and confidence – and that’s what we’re seeing,” said Engleder.
