The data must flow
Under the motto "Level Up", numerous innovators from the tech industry met in Berlin for the IONOS Summit 2024. The IndustryFusion Foundation was also there: "We are pleased to see that we are not the only ones working intensively on digitalization solutions that will also benefit small and medium-sized companies more in the future," says Igor Mikulina, President of the Board of Trustees of the IndustryFusion Foundation.
At the IONOS Summit, a team from the IndustryFusion Foundation presented the open source networking solution IndustryFusion-X together with development partners such as DELL. In future, this will also allow small and medium-sized companies to benefit from the enormous added value of digitally networked production at manageable investment costs. "In numerous discussions, it became clear that IndustryFusion-X is predestined to play the central key role in the future when it comes to the digitalization of medium-sized production facilities," says Igor Mikulina, summing up what he sees as a "great networking event".
The unique approach of the IndustryFusion solution attracted particular interest: it enables interoperable access to data in heterogeneous industrial production environments via standardized formats and a standardized infrastructure. Each asset is represented in the data room by a so-called Process Data Twin (PDT), which the IndustryFusion Foundation has developed together with Intel - this ensures interoperable networking of a wide variety of production resources in the value creation process, making them "communicable", so to speak. IF-X also addresses the issue of security in a unique way: every asset equipped with a PDT can be uniquely registered and identified worldwide thanks to the non-profit organization IFRIC.org. This, together with data storage in Europe, results in a consistent security concept in the central principles that has never been seen before in any other digitalization solution for industrial production. As a result, IndustryFusion-X creates a new type of standardized data space that enables cross-manufacturer networking of all assets in industrial production.
The fact that access to standardized manufacturing data is an absolutely necessary basis for AI applications to be able to scale across the board in the future - including SMEs - became particularly clear in the panel discussion on "AI adaptation in mid-sized companies". Prof. Dr.-Ing. Johannes Schilp from Fraunhofer IGCV/University of Augsburg, who is a member of the IndustryFusion Foundation Board of Trustees, emphasized how important it is to provide SMEs with solutions for structured data collection and processing that minimize the hurdles to implementation: "In the rarest of cases, SMEs have the know-how, the skilled workers and, in general, the resources to network their production in a process-reliable manner and to process data obtained via this in a value-added manner. IndustryFusion solves precisely this problem."
The IndustryFusion Foundation stand at the IONOS Summit 2024 in Berlin was very busy - with a focus on the open source networking solution IndustryFusion-X
Kati Ebenrecht, Lead DACH for NativeEdge Business Development at DEL, explained why her company is proud to be part of the IndustryFusion solution.
Igor Mikulina, Chairman of the IndustryFusion Foundation Board and Managing Director of the medium-sized machine and plant manufacturer MicroStep Europe, explained the major challenge that digitalization poses for SMEs.
Matt Mikulina, Managing Director of IndustryPlus GmbH, which deals with the processing of production data, explained to the interested specialist audience why software companies like his "urgently need an Industry 4.0 operating system like IndustryFusion-X".
During the panel discussion on "AI Adaption in mid-sized companies", Prof. Dr.-Ing. Johannes Schilp from Fraunhofer IGCV/Uni Augsburg explained: "SMEs rarely have the know-how, the specialists and generally the resources to network their production processes reliably and to process the data obtained in a value-added manner. IndustryFusion solves precisely this problem."