The Future Digital Factory
In this short video, “The Future Digital Factory,” Zvi Feuer, Siemens PLM Software’s Senior Vice President, Digital Factory, Manufacturing Engineering Software, shares his perspective on how Siemens helps companies worldwide to realize innovation in manufacturing. Zvi briefly addresses Siemens’ strategy for the future of the digital factory and the challenges faced by manufacturers.
View the video here: The Future Digital Factory 
How does Siemens help companies to realize innovation?
Realizing innovation starts in product design. Innovation is realized by a group of people who have an idea and they test all kinds of scenarios- first in the virtual world. Then they can do a realization of the virtual world into physical design. The next step is to take this into manufacturing. In manufacturing there is a lot of innovation because manufacturing systems out live the product lifecycle. You might have a manufacturing system that is flexible enough, and robust enough to produce a different family of products. And, you need to take care of this innovation as well.
This could be an Innovation in tooling, mechanics, and in software. This could be an innovation in the harmony of everything. How does it work together? This could be an innovation in how you introduce new technologies.
The other area is the ability to enhance productivity throughout the process. This is another area of innovation that is sometimes overlooked. How do you enhance productivity? How do you reduce consumption of energy? How do you reduce CO2 emissions? All of these things are important these days. And, we have to be able to handle all of this. So realizing innovation is a big topic to us and it is something we are dealing with on a daily basis.
One more thing I want to say is that there are two types of innovation. One is the ongoing innovation — you make improvements to the product so people can enjoy some new functionality. And then there is the disruptive innovation. Disruptive innovation could be hybrid machining for example. Hybrid machining could be where you take a CNC machine, like DMG Mori is doing, and with the right software and the right hardware, you combine in one machine the ability to add material and remove material. This is real disruptive innovation.
What is Siemen’s strategy for the future digital factory?
I want to be able to offer our customers industry solutions which provide the means to turn any manufacturing operation into a high tech manufacturer. In order for us to sell not only the software but also usage methodologies And, in fact, to increase productivity with the customer and to help the customer deliver to his customers in a better and faster shape. This will obviously create opportunities for people, opportunities for jobs. And as you know from the *Vickers Engineering movie, this is the purpose of what we do. I want to be there in different industries, in different domains, taking care of part manufacturing, subassemblies, assemblies working with mid-sized companies, as well as with the big companies.
*Vickers Engineering is a New Troy, Michigan-based manufacturer that is growing at 20 to 30 percent annually with the help of robots and automation.
To learn more about Siemens PLM Software, download our “PLM for Manufacturing” white paper about how to design and validate processes in a digital manufacturing environment.
