“Everything we need is here”: Minister Neubaur praises OWL at the Hannover Messe

The world’s most important industrial trade fair has kicked off with around 4,000 exhibitors. The Hannover Messe is attracting visitors from Germany and abroad to the capital of Lower Saxony for the 77th time. In addition to the perennial favourites of automation and digitalization, this year’s trade fair will focus more than ever on artificial intelligence, resource efficiency and energy supply – topics that are also worth taking a look at in East Westphalia-Lippe. In the middle of the hustle and bustle of the trade fair, the joint OWL stand (Hall 7, D27) brings innovations from 35 exhibitors from the region to the international stage – including Claas, Beckhoff and Phoenix Contact as well as the universities and research institutes. An appearance that makes NRW Minister of Economic Affairs Mona Neubaur confident.

“As a minister, OWL gives me something to take with me on my journey: Don’t worry. Everything we need to successfully shape the transformation is here.” The organizers of the joint stand – OstWestfalenLippe GmbH, it’s OWL and owl maschinenbau – also drew a positive conclusion after the first day of the trade fair. “At the Hannover Messe, we once again demonstrated our pioneering position as a region in the field of artificial intelligence and Industry 4.0. These skills and experiences are an important success factor for sustainable business and the implementation of our Industrie.Zero strategy,” says Günter Korder, Managing Director of its OWL. Here at the Hannover

Messe

at the joint OWL stand, you can see what makes this region so strong

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Mona Neubaur, Minister for Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Protection and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.

“Here at the Hannover Messe at the joint OWL stand, you can see what makes this region so strong: everyone is working together as equals. This results in innovation-driven mechanical engineering with regional added value,” praises Neubaur. Qualities that can be seen, for example, in the CLAAS Xerion tractor on the stand. This agricultural machine, which is around 4 meters high and weighs 24 tons, brings together the results of a whole series of cooperation projects that the leading-edge cluster it’s OWL has implemented in recent years. For example, the tractor runs on the environmentally friendly diesel alternative HvO 100, which can be produced from residual cooking oil, but is also set to use artificial intelligence for autonomous driving in the future.

Standing together for the new it’s OWL strategy ‘Industrie.Zero’ (from left): Günter Korder (it’s OWL), Prof. Dr. Holger Borcherding (TH OWL), Björn Böker, Wolfgang Marquardt (both OstWestfalenLippe GmbH), Mona Neubaur (NRW Minister of Economic Affairs), Almut Rademacher (owl maschinenbau e.V.) and the Mayor of Hanover Belit Onay.

Fraunhofer IOSB-INA in Lemgo shows how the combination of different approaches can also create added value in other projects. By combining a gripper robot with a driverless transport system, a mobile robot is created that can position itself independently and flexibly at different points in a production line. Once the transport system has parked the robot, the two components can also perform different tasks separately. In this way, companies should be able to position themselves flexibly with just one purchase.

Artificial intelligence provides significant relief for employees

How artificial intelligence can reshape the world of work in order to relieve the burden on employees was demonstrated by the Arbeitswelt.Plus competence center initiated by it’s OWL. The main focus here is on how companies and research institutions from OstWestfalenLippe are developing and implementing specific applications together with IG Metall. A particular focus here is on how AI can improve working conditions and relieve the burden on employees. The Delbrück-based bathroom specialist Bette, for example, is achieving this through intelligent production planning. Thanks to an AI solution, the company can predict peak loads in production for up to five hours with an accuracy of around 95%. Bette uses this knowledge to sustainably manage the utilization of machines and workstations in production. At Kannegiesser, the global market leader for laundry technology from Vlotho, Germany, an AI takes over the sorting of dirty laundry thanks to the work in the competence center. These and other AI solutions could be experienced using an interactive LEGO model at the OWL joint stand. An augmented reality app playfully demonstrated the added value that the use of AI creates for the individual players at different points in the company. The electronics and connection technology company Weidmüller also presented an AI-based assistance system in collaboration with Fraunhofer IOSB-INA, the University of Paderborn and Eviden, a company for digital services. This was developed as part of a project at the competence center. The aim of this system is to support employees at manual workstations in troubleshooting.

The LEGO demonstrator of the it’s OWL projects Arbeitswelt.Plus and Datenfabrik.NRW generated a lot of enthusiasm among the trade fair visitors.

Datenfabrik.NRW: The production of the future is being created in NRW

An interactive LEGO model for the data-driven factory of the future was presented by ‘Datenfabrik.NRW’ and showed how AI can help to make production sites in Germany more competitive. In what is currently the largest it’s OWL project, global market leaders Claas and Schmitz Cargobull are working together with NTT DATA Business Solutions, Duvenbeck Kraftverkehr and MotionMiners as well as the Fraunhofer Institutes IEM, IML, IOSB-INA and IAIS on new methods and technologies for the companies’ production. Thanks to AI, Claas can, for example, examine 500 production orders simultaneously for planning-relevant anomalies. This not only saves time in planning, but also avoids unnecessary set-up and scrapping costs. At Schmitz Cargobull, digital images of the production environment are created in the shortest possible time thanks to 3D scans and AI, which support the planning and optimization of a plant expansion.

Stratosfare: it’s OWL companies cooperate with start-ups

The it’s OWL initiative Stratosfare showed how companies can easily benefit from start-ups. With the help of Stratosfare, the companies Claas, Melitta, Miele and Wago rely on the ‘venture client model’ and access to a global start-up network to ensure new innovations in the companies. The ‘Venture Client Model’ is the easiest way for companies to enter into new collaborations with start-ups. With this model, companies can become early customers (venture clients) of start-ups. The advantage: companies can easily benefit from the start-ups’ technologies and thus improve their products, processes or business models.

The start-up Credular presented its augmented and mixed reality solutions at the Stratosfare stand.

Lively start-up scene in OstWestfalenLippe

An important pillar of the region’s innovative capacity is a lively start-up scene. Here too, the OWL joint stand offers a compact insight. Over the course of the week, 18 young companies from the region will be presenting themselves – for many, this is the first opportunity to introduce themselves as exhibitors at the world’s largest industry show and to make contacts beyond OWL. “We too often think in our own little bubble – from Bielefeld, Paderborn sometimes seems a long way away. But we have to think much bigger – NRW, Germany, but also Europe. And that’s what I experienced today. We are perceived as a top cluster with an impact on the whole world,” says Johannes Mailänder, founder of the Herford start-up LichtWART, summarizing his first day at the trade fair. The organizers can also look back on a successful start to the trade fair, says Björn Böker, Managing Director of OstWestfalenLippe GmbH: “We had a successful first day here in Hanover, with many highlights. Thanks to the visits from Minister Neubaur, two international delegations from India and China, two school groups and many interested visitors, we were able to position our region today as a high-tech location that is equipped for the challenges of today and tomorrow and is actively shaping the future.”

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