Interview: Industry 4.0 opening up huge business opportunities: Bosch

Industry 4.0 is opening up huge business opportunities and German companies have been very active in seeking Industry 4.0 solutions, a board member of Bosch group said.

The Industry 4.0 is much more than a vision and many companies in Germany are working with modules with components of Industry 4.0, Werner Struth, member of the Board of Management of Borsch group said in a recent interview with Xinhua.

Bosch as a leading global supplier of technology and services has been pushing forward its own Industry 4.0 strategy. The company pooled its Industry 4.0 expertise of more than 100 experts in the so-called Connected Industry innovation cluster.

The team will have more than 200 experts next year and we also have experts in factories dealing with Industry 4.0 activities, Struth said: "it's a larger scope than just this team."

In a tour to its Bosch Rexroth plant located in Homburg recently, Bosch demonstrated how Industry 4.0, or connected industry, is enhancing its competitiveness. At the plant of Bosch Rexroth, a subsidiary of Bosch Group, workers can produce some 200 different hydraulic modules on one line.

The plant is capable of meeting specific customer requirements within a couple of days without any setup time in between various components, Struth said. That's the prerequisite to combine the individual-tailored product with the benefits of scaled mass production, he added.

Bosch is assuming a double role in advancing the development of Industry 4.0 as both a user and a provider. The company has more than 250 factories around the world, which can help learn about the potential of Industry 4.0, Struth said.

The implementation of Industry 4.0 solutions can result in both improved productivity and reduced costs. To cope with fluctuating customers' demand, the company is improving the quality and flexibility by means of Industry 4.0, said Struth. He sees the potential of saving three-digital million euros per year on a global basis.

Taking packaging machine as an example, Struth elaborated how Industry 4.0 could open up business opportunities. As the producer of packaging machines, Bosch Group knows better about the machines than its customers who care only about the reliability of the packaging machine.

By means of Industry 4.0, a remote conditioning monitor can be set up with the support of sensors, software and services. Once the monitoring system detects a change of parameters, the customers will be informed and advised to do some maintenance or preventive repairing work. Thus the reliability and output of the packaging machine will be improved, Struth said.

The Industry 4.0 topic has aroused interests around the globe. "All the big manufacturing places are interested in Industry 4.0," Struth said and added that Germany has something unique.

Germany has a tradition of building production machines and the production industry, universities and other science institutions, the infrastructure for transportation and other elements constitutes a kind of an Eco system for the development of Industry 4.0, he explained.

With regard to the Industry 4.0 platform in Germany, Struth said it is playing a role of developing basic requirements and proposals on how a reference architecture of data acquisition, computing and transmission should look like.

It supports especially small companies in doing things they could not afford by themselves and provides a standard across large and small companies, he said. Endit