Future Oriented Manufacturing Summit- FOMS 2017 Shanghai

Ahead of the 19^th China International Industry Fair (CIIF) in the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai), 7-10 November 2017, ARC was invited to take part with a presenter and panelist participant at the Future Oriented Manufacturing Summit. Over 300 people from various industries participated at the summit.

All presentations/ speeches covered “Smart Manufacturing” and other related topics like Industrie 4.0 and digitization and how this change in manufacturing will influence future Chinese production processes. Presentations were delivered, amongst others, by Siemens, Phoenix Contact, Mitsubishi Electric, Rockwell Automation, Schneider Electric, Delta, ABB, Sick, WAGO, and SAP.

ARC’s Fabian Wanke was giving a presentation on how the automotive industry presses ahead with Industrie 4.0. The automotive industry is facing many new challenges not just in production, which concern all participants of the automotive value chain. While electrification and autonomous driving impact the product itself, shifts in consumer behaviors like car sharing force car manufacturers to think about new revenue streams and services.

At the panel discussion, topics discussed included the war of talents - especially in IT, IT/OT convergence, open networks and standardization. All panelists agreed that China has an enormous potential for digitizing their industry, while the Chinese consumer market is already digitized to a high . A discussion on which industrial standard will be the most common/ accepted in the future saw a split in the panel. The automation suppliers were defending the industrial ethernet standards in use, while ARC sees a clear trend for open standards, where it seems that OPC UA over TSN will make the race as it is well- accepted by many stakeholders involved. ARC is looking forward to joining the next Future Oriented Manufacturing Summit.

More in-depth information concerning this event will be available in an upcoming ARC Insights.