Industrial innovation and COVID-19
It was only one month ago that Siemens Digital Industries held in Tel-Aviv an Industrial Innovation Tour together with Siemens Dynamo Startups. One month later, and the world seem to have dramatically changed around us. How relevant are the solutions we demonstrated in this new era of uncertainty and change? very relevant, we believe in Siemens Dynamo.
The promise of Industry 4.0 can help respond much faster to the historic moment. Thousands, if not tens-of-thousands, of production lines are being re-purposed. The fascinating story of Dyson, that is starting to mass produce ventilators, is just one example. Companies that are already in the “right line of business”, like hygienic products or medical devices, would now need to double or quadrupole their production in a very short time. There is no way to efficiently handle these changes without Digital Twin concepts of simulation, virtualization and advanced planning. Robots and Cobots will have to take on more and more manufacturing and logistics jobs. This will bring us much faster towards the futuristic vision of autonomous factory, that was discussed in last month’s panels.
Siemens Dynamo startups and COVID-19
The transformation is not only about technology, it is about culture, and way of doing things. Who are more capable to deal with a situation of uncertainty and change, than those that are used to live like this all the time? We already see how some of the startups in our program respond fast to the situation:
Anodot for example, an Autonomous monitoring company also applicable for industrial use cases, released a public COVID-19 online tracker. Anodot provides real-time updates when number of confirmed coronavirus cases undergo anomalous changes; users can subscribe to email and Twitter alerts that signal, by region, when cases surge or decline. Try it here.
Nanofabrica has asked it followers to suggest problems that might be solved with its unique micro-3D printing capabilities. See here. In general, the 3D printing community find itself very relevant, as engineers all over the world are in a race to fast-prototype and produce necessary aids. Siemens has made available last week its Additive Manufacturing (AM) Network, along with its 3D printers, to the global medical community, for speed design and production of medical components.
Cybord, on the other end, need not adopt much. The company’s counterfeit electronics components inspection solution has become very relevant. With the situation of the supply chain in Asia, many manufacturers are turning to secondary component suppliers, where the risk of counterfeit is higher. Read more about it here.
Optimstic look into the future
So, amid all the sad news about lives lost and economies halting, we can find hope in the power of innovation to change the direction faster than in past pandemics. We are very proud at Siemens Dynamo to serve as a bridge for innovation, helping the better solutions surface, and scale faster. Being based in Israel, we are also very encouraged to see how the wider community of startups and technology companies take-up the fight against COVID-19. See for example here takethe fight
Learn more about Siemens Dynamo by taking the Industry Innovation Tour, and please contact us at dynamo.il@siemens.com if we can help.
About the author
Ran Livnat, Managing partner of Siemens Open Innovation program in Israel, has more than 20 years of experience in the software industry, as a business development director in global markets, product manager, and software analyst.
