Digital transformation of the midmarket sector

Cut­ting-edge tech­nolo­gies and the pro­tec­tion of intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty are a vital lever for advanc­ing com­pet­i­tive­ness and for open­ing up new busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties for medi­um-sized com­pa­nies in the process and man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­tries. This was the mes­sage giv­en by Klaus Helm­rich, Mem­ber of the Man­ag­ing Board of Siemens AG and CEO Siemens Dig­i­tal Indus­tries, as he addressed the “Forum of Ger­man SME” (“Forum Deutsch­er Mit­tel­stand”) in Stuttgart, south­ern Ger­many. The Forum was attend­ed by 500 rep­re­sen­ta­tives from numer­ous well-known Ger­man com­pa­nies in mechan­i­cal and plant engi­neer­ing in order to debate dig­i­tal strate­gies and future tech­nolo­gies for small and medi­um-sized com­pa­nies. “The mid­mar­ket sec­tor has always been char­ac­ter­ized by its inno­v­a­tive force. We now need to pro­tect these inno­va­tions with new approach­es to patent­ing soft­ware and appli­ca­tions, for exam­ple,” Klaus Helm­rich explained.

Cutting-edge technologies for data utilization

Cut­ting-edge tech­nolo­gies will have an influ­en­tial role to play in the next stage of the dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion process since they allow data to be eval­u­at­ed more com­pre­hen­sive­ly and in more depth than was pre­vi­ous­ly the case: Users can now col­lect and view data on cloud plat­forms and are able to ana­lyze it using arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence algo­rithms, and learn how they can make their pro­duc­tion process­es even more effi­cient, for exam­ple by devel­op­ing and using new qual­i­ty man­age­ment and test meth­ods. One such cloud plat­form is Mind­Sphere, the open, cloud-based IoT oper­at­ing sys­tem from Siemens. With this oper­at­ing sys­tem, the data sole­ly belong to the user com­pa­nies that gen­er­ate this data: The deci­sion as to who has access to this data is theirs alone. “Com­pa­nies of every size and from a wide range of indus­tries can uti­lize Mind­Sphere – from auto­mo­bile to bev­er­age pro­duc­ers, and from small and medi­um-sized com­pa­nies to large cor­po­ra­tions,” accord­ing to Helmrich.

In order to use exist­ing data and data pools, users must be able to devel­op appli­ca­tions sim­ply and effi­cient­ly. Siemens offers the Men­dix low code plat­form which is also avail­able on Mind­Sphere. The inte­grat­ed solu­tion makes the devel­op­ment of indus­tri­al IoT appli­ca­tions sig­nif­i­cant­ly eas­i­er and up to ten times quicker.

In order to dri­ve the devel­op­ment of the ecosys­tem around Mind­Sphere togeth­er with users, over 100 mem­bers have joined up to form one of the glob­al user asso­ci­a­tions known as “Mind­Sphere World”. The Ger­man asso­ci­a­tion alone has around 60 mem­bers, includ­ing numer­ous renowned medi­um-sized com­pa­nies. Mind­Sphere World pro­vides a forum for all users of the Mind­Sphere ecosys­tem. The asso­ci­a­tion aims to sup­port indi­vid­ual mem­bers in devel­op­ing and opti­miz­ing IoT solu­tions on Mind­Sphere, as well as tap into new mar­kets in the dig­i­tal econ­o­my. Mind­Sphere World is a prime exam­ple of new ways of work­ing togeth­er in the era of Indus­try 4.0.

Cloud and edge synergy

Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence can not only be found in the cloud. Thanks to ever more pow­er­ful com­put­ing capa­bil­i­ties, it can also per­form dis­trib­uted data eval­u­a­tions direct­ly on the machine and sug­gest suit­able cours­es of action. Edge com­put­ing thus com­ple­ments automa­tion plat­forms with data pro­cess­ing capa­bil­i­ties. The machine data can now be ana­lyzed instan­ta­neous­ly with­out lengthy trans­mis­sion paths and saved on the shop floor which increas­es per­for­mance and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. Siemens already offers such a solu­tion, known as Indus­tri­al Edge: The own­er of the data retains con­trol over it at all times and decides who will be autho­rized to access this data.

Cloud tech­nolo­gies are suit­able for appli­ca­tions where data is admin­is­tered cen­tral­ly, or there are large quan­ti­ties requir­ing eval­u­a­tion, such as in the pro­vi­sion of apps and updat­ed soft­ware ver­sions, or when gen­er­at­ing long-term sta­tis­tics. Edge com­put­ing, on the oth­er hand, is use­ful when ana­lyz­ing data local­ly with short trans­mis­sion paths, vir­tu­al­ly on a real-time basis. Depend­ing on the require­ment, the user can decide how and when to use and com­bine the two tech­nolo­gies. “With this suc­cess­ful inter­play of Indus­tri­al Edge, cloud tech­nolo­gies and exist­ing automa­tion solu­tions, we are see­ing a renais­sance on the shop floor char­ac­ter­ized by a new dimen­sion of ver­sa­til­i­ty, scal­a­bil­i­ty and secu­ri­ty in data pro­cess­ing. This syn­er­gy is paving the way for entire­ly new busi­ness mod­els,” enthused Helmrich.

Safeguarding competitiveness with patents

When inno­va­tions and inven­tive busi­ness mod­els arise on the basis of dig­i­tal data, it is impor­tant that these new devel­op­ments are pro­tect­ed. How­ev­er, most Indus­try 4.0 patent appli­ca­tions at the Euro­pean Patent Office are still reg­is­tered by major com­pa­nies, with small and medi­um-sized com­pa­nies (SMEs) being strong­ly under­rep­re­sent­ed. Accord­ing to the Euro­pean Union Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Office (2015), small and medi­um-sized com­pa­nies that own intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights have over 30 per­cent more sales per employ­ee. “It is imper­a­tive for SMEs to devel­op and iden­ti­fy soft­ware solu­tions that are suit­able for patent­ing,” says Helm­rich. The focus these days is no longer just on pure tech­nol­o­gy, but on cus­tomer ben­e­fits and new busi­ness mod­els. Inven­tions suit­able for patent­ing are no longer only to be found in devel­op­ment depart­ments, but also in mar­ket­ing and sales, for exam­ple. Work­shops to be held on the sub­ject and net­work­ing with qual­i­fied patent attor­neys will help to iden­ti­fy inven­tions with­in the companies.