Kassel, 11 November 2024 – At the autumn conference of the WGP (Academic Association for Production Technology) last week in Kassel, the professors decided to consolidate and clearly expand artificial intelligence and its practical application in production within the WGP. To this end, the association will create its own internal WGP committee from the BMBF-funded demonstration and transfer network ProKI from the beginning of 2025 after the end of its funding phase. ‘The importance of AI for innovative manufacturing processes cannot be overestimated,’ emphasises WGP President Prof. Michael Zäh. ‘With the newly created internal structures, we will be the point of contact for medium-sized manufacturing companies in the future to receive professional support in the introduction of artificial intelligence. Machine learning clearly offers economic potential for an unimagined number of production technology scenarios, and this potential needs to be realised. It can also help to alleviate the shortage of skilled labour.’
AI is still too rarely used in practice
Especially in times of economic uncertainty associated with climate change, AI can help to make industrial production more efficient. This is why the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) funded the ProKI project. It was launched in autumn 2022 to support small and medium-sized companies in particular with the introduction of AI and its integration into production processes. Seven WGP institutes across Germany and the Department of Production Engineering at Ilmenau University of Technology were involved. Demonstrators and test environments are available at all locations to promote data-supported production with advice, workshops and scalable AI transfer. ‘Our SME sector, which is particularly strong in Germany, is lagging behind its potential because many entrepreneurs don’t know how to approach the introduction of AI or where it makes sense at all,’ explains Prof Christian Brecher, Member of the Board of Directors of the Machine Tool Laboratory (WZL) at RWTH Aachen University. ‘With the help of the WGP, they can change this with a manageable amount of time and money and introduce existing solutions for predictive quality, predictive maintenance or productivity optimisation. In this way, they could take on a pioneering role internationally.’ Brecher coordinated the nationwide ProKI initiative.
Expansion of AI activities
During the ProKI project term 2022-2024, companies were able to gain inspiration from numerous seminars and training events, trade fairs and the two Smart Factory conferences, for example. These conferences showcased the diverse range of AI applications for the manufacturing industry that are already ready for implementation. The challenge for SMEs is therefore not to develop new applications, but to select the right one for themselves from the range of options. ‘An event like the Smart Factory Conference is ideally suited for this because it brings together experts from all over Germany,’ says Brecher. ‘There are panel discussions and a whole host of best-practice examples such as the Smart Mini Press from the Institute for Production Technology and Forming Machines (PtU) in Darmstadt.’ The WGP therefore intends to continue the well-attended conference series on its own responsibility and develop it into a regular platform for AI in Germany. ‘It could also become the venue for an annual Best AI Application Award,’ says Brecher, looking to the near future.
Research and training will also be intensified
In addition to the transfer of operational solutions into industrial practice, research activities will also be further promoted and bundled in future. The already diverse work at the individual institutes will be bundled in a thematic focus in the WGP journal Production Engineering, and further research activities will be added.The position paper AI in Production, which was presented to members of the German government’s AI Enquête Commission in 2019, is to be supplemented and updated.In addition, the online workshops organised in previous years will be continued and expanded.To this end, they will be integrated into the WGP Production Academy from 2025.‘The seminars offered there will all undergo a review process to guarantee outstanding quality standards,’ emphasises Zäh.‘In this way, we are creating a broad basis for the transfer of knowledge to our SMEs and can also use AI to help overcome the many crises currently facing the industry with innovative technologies,’ says the WGP President with conviction.
Further Information
Press release ‘WGP helps implement AI’
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Image 1: Visual inspections using AI and robots; Source: IFW Hanover
Image 2: Prof Michael Zäh, President of the WGP and Head of the Institute for Machine Tools and Industrial Management (iwb) at the Technical University of Munich; Source: iwb TU Munich, Sebastian Kissel
Image 3: Prof Christian Brecher, Member of the Board of Directors of the Machine Tool Laboratory (WZL) at RWTH Aachen University; Source: WZL Aachen