Festo drives change in automation, education

 

Hannover, Germany – In the digital transformation of its customers in factory and process automation, Festo has the human in focus in addition to the technology, with new forms of human-machine cooperation and qualification solutions 4.0. At the Hannover Messe trade fair, the company is already presenting initial applications for flexible networked production of the future. Festo is also contributing its competence to the Industry 4.0 platform and invested in its own digital production during the past financial year with the Scharnhausen Technology Plant. 

 

The company is reinforcing its orientation towards the future under the leadership of Dr. Claus Jessen, its new chairman of the management board. A key driving force for the future development of Festo is the ongoing digitalization of industrial automation. 

 

“Festo makes its customers more productive. To this end, we develop solutions that meet their own particular requirements. Our experience in pneumatics and in electric automation sets us on an ideal footing in this regard,” Jessen said, on the occasion of the Hannover Messe 2016 trade fair. 

 

Festo works in close cooperation with its customers to devise new concepts and business models – from the development of communication-capable components with decentralized intelligence, to their integration into superordinate automation environments, and up to new service models. The company invests around 8% of its sales volume in research and development.

 

This includes intensification of software activities with the “House of Software”, the development of a superordinate decentralized automation platform and the extension of electric automation. With the takeover of Eichenberger Gewinde AG at the beginning of this year, the Electric Automation division was also strengthened in the field of linear actuators.

 

“We are expediting digitalization throughout all divisions of our company. Research and development, the supply chain, IT, the sales sector with interfaces to the value-creation processes of our customers – everything is becoming virtually networked to an increasing extent and is growing together. Nevertheless, our people remain a key success factor. We can only tap the great potential offered by Industry 4.0 if we reinvent working worlds and develop training concepts in keeping with the changing requirements,” Jessen said. The company is already putting Industry 4.0 into practice in technical training and cooperation projects at the Scharnhausen Technology Plant, near the corporate headquarters.

 

Festo is pressing ahead with research and development in Industry 4.0 for both factory and process automation. With the Multi-Carrier-System in factory automation and new concepts for modular production in process automation, the first products for flexible networked production of the future were already launched on the market last year. At this year’s Hannover Messe trade fair under the motto “Discover Solutions,” the focus is on specific applications with Industry 4.0-capable components and systems.