ChatGPT for engineers: East Westphalia-Lippe joins forces in the new performance center for engineering automation
Driving innovation faster and more efficiently, revolutionizing engineering: Ostwestfalen-Lippe is positioning itself as a top location for AI-supported automation in engineering. The new Engineering Automation Performance Center is a contact point for companies that want to make targeted use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the development of new products and machines. This will enable them to drastically reduce development times, increase productivity and secure competitive advantages.
With the it’s OWL technology network, the OWL region has already established itself as a leading innovation ecosystem for intelligent systems and the use of AI over the past 12 years. The new performance center now marks the next milestone for the region: a platform of excellence to ensure competitiveness in the engineering of high-tech solutions.
“Companies in Ostwestfalen-Lippe need high-performance technologies in order to remain competitive. The new performance center pools regional AI expertise in order to actively shape this change and further strengthen OWL as a core industrial region,” says Dr. Stefan Breit, Managing Director of Miele and Chairman of the it’s OWL Cluster Board.
More efficient and faster: new innovation paths for companies in the region
The new center focuses on using AI throughout the entire development process and tailoring it to specific company requirements. In this way, recurring tasks can be automated, data intelligently linked and processes optimized. The aim is not only to improve existing processes, but also to open up completely new innovation paths.
AI-supported copilots – similar to a “ChatGPT” for engineers – open up a wide range of possible applications and give companies decisive competitive advantages. The copilots help to analyze complex relationships more quickly and make well-founded decisions.
“Our goal is for German industry to recognize and use AI as a decisive competitive advantage.”
Prof. Roman Dumitrescu, Director at Fraunhofer IEM and Managing Director of it’s OWL.
“With the breakthrough of generative AI, the boundaries of what is possible have shifted. The close integration of AI and engineering not only means significant efficiency gains, but also completely new possibilities for product design and development. Our goal is for German industry to recognize and use AI as a decisive competitive advantage,” explains Prof. Roman Dumitrescu, Director at Fraunhofer IEM and Managing Director of it’s OWL.
A current example of an engineering copilot is a solution for searching for identical parts in the agricultural machinery industry. Developers can identify the right part from millions of components in just 13 seconds. This significantly reduces manufacturing, development and sales costs. AI is also making decisive advances in automation technology. Together with the company Phoenix Contact, Fraunhofer AI experts have developed a local language model for generating structured text (ST) for PLC programming in accordance with IEC 61131-3.
“The new High-Performance Center is an award for the work done in our region to date and an investment in the future viability of OWL as a development location. It accompanies industry as a partner – from the initial idea to the practical implementation of AI in development work,” emphasizes Prof. Jürgen Jasperneite, Director of Fraunhofer IOSB-INA and, together with Prof. Dumitrescu, initiator and spokesperson of the new High-Performance Center.
Cooperation as a model for success: AI made in OWL
The strong culture of cooperation in OWL shows how companies, research institutions and universities work together successfully to develop and implement specific AI solutions. Examples of successful it’s OWL initiatives include Datenfabrik.NRW, the AI marketplace, the AI real-world laboratory and the Arbeitswelt.Plus competence center.
“Our region has been building up excellent AI expertise at its universities for years. The High-Performance Center is the ideal format for transferring knowledge from outstanding research to industry – and will further raise our profile as a technology hub,” says Prof. Ingeborg Schramm-Wölk, President of Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences and Chairwoman of Campus OWL, the association of regional universities.
Benefit from the offers now
The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is supporting the establishment of the High Performance Center office. Companies now have the opportunity to benefit from a wide range of services – from practical live demonstrations and use case workshops to individual consultations and the direct integration of AI-supported copilots into existing development processes. Highlights include the GenAI Incubator in Paderborn and the SmartFactoryOWL in Lemgo: In the GenAI Incubator, companies work together with AI experts from Fraunhofer IEM and student teams on new AI solutions for development.
In a protected environment, companies can test and validate these approaches in a targeted manner and put them into practice at high speed. In the SmartFactoryOWL, companies can use AI for automation under real conditions with experts from Fraunhofer IOSB-INA and thus significantly reduce set-up times for machines and systems, for example.
Interested companies can contact Dr.-Ing. Christian Fechtelpeter(send e-mail) and Dr. Gesa Benndorf(send e-mail).
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