The time has come, Hannover Messe is over for 2018 and Frenus much to share with you. Like we have spoken in our previous blog articles, three of our specialists delivered lectures in their respective areas: IoT Security, Robotics, and Predictive Maintenance. During the one-week fair, we constantly posted our impressions and updates regarding innovations and our company`s presentations. All of them did achieve a great deal of success. After every presentation, our speakers spent up to 30 minutes networking with different visitors and exhibitors who were highly interested in the topics presented.
Starting chronologically, first Suraj Rajashekar presented a deep dive into the best practices, use cases and outlook of IoT Security. Further within his presentation, he described the latest trends and most useful applications to secure sensitive data. Furthermore, the presentation covered the results from market analysis of security risks brought about due to IoT adoption.
“A designer needs to find all the flaws in a system while an attacker only needs to find one. Assume that the system will fail and prepare accordingly”
-Suraj Rajashekar, Market Advisor, FRENUS GmbH
Second on the list was Adam Kenyeres, with his lecture focused on industrial robots and the recent trends sweeping the industry. The analysis included current market trends and forecasted development by 2020, and the influence of AI including key barriers affecting industrial automation progress. The presentation depicted the region-specific development of robotics with respect to customer size and introduced recent case studies.
“AI is changing the game for industrial robotics by eliminating the expensive environment necessary for conventional robots.”
-Adam Kenyeres, Senior Market Advisor, FRENUS GmbH
Last on the dais was our Site and Lead IoT Manager, Marcel Blume presented results of Frenus’ study titled “Customers` voice: Predictive Maintenance in Manufacturing, Western Europe”. The presentation provided market insights on the adoption of Predictive Maintenance solutions based on interconnected concepts like current presence along the implementation funnel, expectations from technology providers, technical infrastructure maturity and pain points regarding Predictive Maintenance. Additionally, the presentation introduced “Customers` Voice”, a recent case study aimed at providing a better understanding of the Predictive Maintenance market from the users` point of view. The study was conducted from hundreds of fruitful and interesting discussions over the phone.
“There are 5 key topics in regard to predictive maintenance: Maintenance technology adoption, IT solution landscape, production and maintenance landscape of customers, sales funnel focusing at the implementation phase, and specific customers’ needs, fears, and objectives, meaning what are the key barriers for non-users or users who are already implementing predictive maintenance during the implementation phase.”
-Marcel Blume, Lead IoT & Site Manager, FRENUS GmbH
Hannover Messe 2018 was a great opportunity not only to present our recent findings, case studies and analyses to the crowd but also to visit other company presentations and build long-lasting relationships. Below we are sharing with you some of the most interesting presentations we had the chance to witness.
Bosch Rexroth
“Bosch is making the factory of the future clever, lean and flexible.”
Why was Bosch Rexroth so impressive? Well, firstly the visuals, 3D wall and introduction to the concept of “The Factory of the Future” were akin to a movie. Bosch introduced a cooperation with manufacturers, end users, university researchers, industry associations, IT companies and stakeholders to make a factory flexible with less effort and time. Furthermore, the company combines predictive maintenance, process optimization, and traceability in the name of overall equipment effectiveness OEE.
Omron Cooperation introduced further advancements in their table tennis robot called FORPHEUS, which is improved each year to present to the public. The advancements are easy to understand for anyone. The robot is suitable for players from any professional level – from beginners to advanced professionals. Without any doubt, with its recent updates, FORPHEUS is one of the world`s first table tennis training robot. During their official presentation at Hannover Messe 2018, the company announced a cooperation with network security leaders.
“Since big data requires a high level of security we recently announced a collaboration with network security leaders”
We came across numerous interesting stands, each of which had their own unique approach and product contribution to the digital transformation landscape. One of the recurring themes that makes an impact on our daily lives was the ‘Smart City’ theme.
The company e. Go made an appearance at the Microsoft stand, where they showcased their all-purpose electric minibus e. Go Mover. e. Go Mover is equipped for public transportation and uses Microsoft Azure to develop urban mobility solutions, for example – on-demand mobility. e. Go first plans to release the vehicles with a human operator, and eventually make them fully autonomous.
IBM, on the other hand, presented their biggest project – ‘World’s Smartest Port’, where they would be covering the 42-kilometers of the area in the Port of Rotterdam with IBM Cloud and IBM IoT, as a part of their 2025 vision of the port – autonomous ships. IoT will be used for making a Digital Twin to track conditions – from weather data to geography and movement of ships. Additionally, ‘Digital Dolphins’ are planned to be placed (smarter buoys and quay walls), which by using sensors would be able to generate time-stamped data. Another company that has their eyes set on changing the landscape of transportation is Deutsche Telekom. On visiting their stand one of the many projects that were shown was the City Pass. City Pass incorporates blockchain technology for using services like public transportation, bicycle rental, library access, etc. and makes the payment process more reliable, secure and faster. Their demonstration featured producing a custom City Pass on spot and demonstrating its uses – not only does the process look seamless, but the technology calculates the amount of time you’ve spent using the vehicle or being in the facility while using just one card for all purposes.
While we are on the topic of security, the cybersecurity giant – Kaspersky Lab, was a stand on our ‘to visit’ list for Hannover Messe 2018. Under the Kaspersky Industrial Cybersecurity umbrella, sporting the #truecybersecurity hashtag, Kaspersky Lab was showcasing the services which focus on neutralizing and detecting malware that takes advantage of software vulnerabilities, making the industrial control networks secure from cyber-attacks.
One of the many stands that we visited was Fujitsu, who demonstrated one of their projects in collaboration with T-Systems in the theme of ‘Smart factory’. The product is a VR headset which is used for cases of manual assembly (picking) where the manufacturing process has changed to customer-specific. The headset uses a camera which scans the barcodes of special transport containers, merging orders and components, and giving instructions to the human operator about his further actions, via projections and voice commands. It is aimed to make the operator hands-free and make the process of picking faster – suitable for such a time-sensitive business.
When the budget is not a large factor, exhibitors found ways to showcase their products in a creative way. One of those stands was QLAYM, as they gathered visitors’ attention by using a drum set to visualize how their solutions work. QLAYM’s services are transforming operative data into insights. Using a drum (symbol for an industrial machine) and a screen which shows the activity or ‘data’ collected from the drums, they demonstrated in an entertaining way the intuitive and simple performance of their platform Qoactive.
We spoke about smart city and smart factory, but GSMA showed us a contribution to the field of smart farming. At their stand at Hannover Messe Huawei, Telia, Nortace and Shiip’s project for smart farming was showcased. By using NB-IoT, farmers can attach devices to track and monitor their livestock. With a battery life of 14 years per charge and wide cellular network, this project is expected to make a great difference for the harsh conditions of Norwegian farming.
And last but not the least, we came across a stand, which, despite differing from our topics of expertise, had quite an interesting project…not to mention delicious. Partnering with LAPP at their stand, we met Magic Candy Factory – a small company, which happens to be the first company producing candy using a 3D printer. Working both on a B2C and B2B basis, they offer services like making a candy version of your face, company logo and even your products (if simple enough to visualize). It was certainly a refreshing, vegan and inspiring experience provided by this startup of entrepreneurs!
Hannover Messe was a challenge, an adventure and overall an experience worthy of its name and hype. We at Frenus are grateful for every single one of you who stopped by our stand, as well as all the amazing industry moguls that we spoke to. Thank you, Hannover Messe for letting us be a part of the fair and to whoever is reading this – for taking interest in our content!
