CESMII—The Smart Manufacturing Institute had a couple of news releases around Hannover Messe. In one, it announced a cooperation agreement with the German Plattform Industrie 4.0. The second announcement concerned Microsoft joining. CESMII CEO John Dyck has been busily building out the team, building partnerships, and establishing centers of excellence. I expect substantial progress from this US Dept. of Energy initiative.
The German Plattform Industrie 4.0 and the US Institute CESMII cooperate to shape the Future of Manufacturing.
Germany and the United States are among the top five manufacturing countries in the world. The two countries’ manufacturers share an interconnected network of facilities and suppliers, including many small and medium-sized enterprises.
Plattform Industrie 4.0 (Germany) and CESMII (US) are announcing their partnership to address similar challenges and needs related to Industrie 4.0 / Smart Manufacturing. For both manufacturing economies to compete, they need international collaboration to achieve major tasks like semantic interoperability, create data sharing platforms, develop workforce skills, and foster sustainable production.
Platform Industrie 4.0 promotes the development of Industrie 4.0 in Germany by developing precompetitive concepts, recommendations and use cases for practical application. CESMII promotes Smart Manufacturing in the US by supporting precompetitive research and development, providing tools and test bed for new technology as public-private partnerships, and creating content for educating a next generation of smart manufacturers.
“Production is globally connected, and manufacturers are in digital transformation worldwide. Whereas digitalization provides great potentials like higher resilience, flexibility, and efficiency, we need to shape digital ecosystems globally and learn together to unfold these potentials. We highly appreciate the ongoing working relationship with CESMII and are happy to have CESMII on stage of the Hannover Messe to jointly discuss the digitalization of industry”, says Thomas Hahn, member of the Steering Committee of Plattform Industrie 4.0.
As part of the cooperation, CESMII appeared on a Plattform Industrie 4.0 panel, “Shaping digital ecosystems globally,” at the Hannover Messe.
Technology standardization is critical to ensure that pre-competitive technology in smart manufacturing is interoperable across different IT/OT systems. Developing workforce competencies and skills is essential to continue the path of innovation and to drive adoption. These are highly complementary efforts that will help the US and Germany to ensure these systems work well based on common standards that are mutually beneficial.
CESMII – The Smart Manufacturing Institute, Adds Microsoft as Member
CESMII – The Smart Manufacturing Institute has added Microsoft as a member. From the press release, “Interoperability and innovation that can scale are essential for a more competitive and resilient manufacturing environment, and it’s a pleasure to welcome market leaders that embody these values to our Smart Manufacturing (SM) ecosystem. A relentless focus on these values is essential to achieving CESMII’s vision to accelerate the democratization of Smart Manufacturing.”
Microsoft brings their thought leadership, standards advocacy and enabling technologies to our members and our SM Innovation Centers and will engage with other industry leaders to participate in our Standing Committees, adding their insights to our Technology, Business Practices, and Education and Workforce Development efforts as we drive this ecosystem forward.
“This is a pivotal time for CESMII,” states John Dyck, CEO of CESMII. “We are making great progress on many fronts, addressing the real challenges preventing manufacturers from accelerating their Smart Manufacturing and digital transformation initiatives. Our focus on enabling manufacturing system interoperability will have a dramatic impact on our energy productivity, sustainability, and competitiveness as a nation. A big part of that is defining and enabling the adoption of industry standards that will significantly reduce the cost and complexity of deploying Smart Manufacturing solutions. We’re pleased to see Microsoft take this step with us, advocating for standards, for interoperability, and creating a community of thought leaders that can truly transform this industry.”
“We strongly believe in standards, as exhibited by our work with CESMII on key OPC Foundation initiatives, and we appreciate that CESMII is addressing some of the great challenges preventing the adoption of digital transformation at scale,” says Sam George, corporate vice president of Azure IoT at Microsoft. “The focus on interoperability, openness, and the crowd-sourcing of information models for manufacturing assets is an essential accelerator for our mutual vision to accelerate the democratization of Smart Manufacturing,” continues George. “We’re pleased to engage with CESMII and their ecosystem as an enabling force in this industry, working broadly to bring real transformation to this industry.”
