Summit meeting in Tirol: This was the 8th Summit Industrie 4.0 from Hall
I am repeatedly fascinated by how many “hidden champions“ Austria has among its industrial companies. Jürgen Schmidt and I had the opportunity to visit one of them as part of the Summit Industrie 4.0 in Hall/Tirol. Tiroler Rohre demonstrate what I see as the perfect mix of the highest manufacturing standards with digital support and down-to-earth industrial production. Particularly interesting is the digital control room for process monitoring, which processes data automatically in order to issue warnings in good time before anything gets out of hand. In effect, a Digital Twin of the entire production operation was developed. We learned how complex these products are and what high requirements they have to meet. With innovative solutions for pipe and pile systems, TRM has held its ground on the international market for 75 years and exports as far as Mongolia – a typical “hidden champion”.
In fact, however, we had travelled for the Summit Industrie 4.0. The congress opened the following day at the highly impressive “Salzlager” event location. Once again, the focus was on supporting employees through digitalization and AI. Application examples for digital twins (Digital Twins) in production, or the digital product passport, which will advance the circularity of products, provide customers with better information for their purchasing decisions and create greater transparency overall along the value chain.
Data-space applications are something I would like to explore in greater depth in the future. Sharing data in a protected environment can offer advantages for many companies. We often think exclusively about protecting data, but fail to see the added value when insights are shared in a targeted way. The Gaia-X Hub Austria is a very exciting initiative in this field.
Next-generation junior projects also show great potential. Female students from HTBLVA Trenkwalderstraße in Innsbruck presented how reinforced concrete structures can be digitized and made tangible with Augmented Reality.
My very personal favorite keynote was the one by Andreas Windisch with the compelling title “Act Instead of Waiting”. With it, he said exactly what I had been thinking. The worst mistake you can make at the moment is to do nothing. Waiting for an even better tool, a specific opportunity or calmer economic times means we will miss the boat. Starting projects, developing them further in an agile and iterative way, making mistakes, correcting course and continuing to move forward is the order of the day.
Starting projects, developing them further in an agile and iterative way, making mistakes, correcting course and continuing to move forward is the order of the day.
Andreas Windisch knows WHY this WILL work in Austria:
At the congress and in the many conversations, it became clear in any case that there are many industrial companies that genuinely want to innovate. New technologies are not viewed critically; instead, their possible applications are being explored with passion. The drive to rethink industry, design sustainable product cycles and keep the sector attractive on the global market is highly compelling. PROGE, the production workers’ union, is also a founding member of Plattform Industrie 4.0. It shows us how important social partnership is and how it is practiced in Austria. My break-time conversations with union officials confirm that they are pulling together with employer representatives (and in the same direction, too) when it comes to digitalization and the deep integration of artificial intelligence. The gentle skepticism with regard to job security is ultimately subject to the view: “We are all in the same boat, after all” (original quote).
Despite all the doomsayers, Austria’s industry is catching up. Growth continues to be recorded in many sectors and product groups that are innovative and sustainable. And the topics we work on together with our customers help maintain or restore competitiveness. Forecasting systems, pattern recognition from data to identify correlations or maintenance requirements for machines, and the automation of supply chains have arrived in industry – AI-driven data applications that create a direct ROI. Many of these applications are also controlled via LLMs, and this is where we then see a genuinely meaningful use of generative AI in industry.
And to make things easier, one final tip: The “Test before Invest” initiative funds small-scale projects on digitalization. Up to € 40.000,- is funded 100% by the European Commission and FFG as a non-repayable grant!
So: Let’s tackle it together, we’ll see how it goes, then it’ll work out!
Thank you to Plattform Industrie 4.0 represented by Chairman Thomas Welser and Managing Director Roland Sommer, the Standortagentur Tirol and Wirtschafts-Standort Vorarlberg for the invitation to this high-caliber event.