umati has new partner Demag Cranes & Components GmbH

Demag Cranes & Com­pon­ents GmbH is now part of the umati community 

What expect­a­tions do you have of umati, what do you expect from the part­ner­ship? 

Today’s mater­i­al flow in int­ra­lo­gist­ics and pro­duc­tion halls is only par­tially able to cope with chal­lenges such as small batch sizes and increas­ing product indi­vidu­al­iz­a­tion. A flex­ible adapt­a­tion of the mater­i­al flow pro­cess is one of the essen­tial char­ac­ter­ist­ics of future smart factor­ies.  Cur­rently, dif­fer­ent types of machines involved in the mater­i­al flow com­mu­nic­ate with each oth­er only to a very lim­ited extent, at high cost or not at all. This lim­ited com­mu­nic­a­tion means that the machines can­not col­lab­or­ate with the oper­at­ors and accord­ingly the work pro­cesses are not suf­fi­ciently sup­por­ted. Mod­u­lar­iz­a­tion and machine-to-machine com­mu­nic­a­tion (M2M) form the basis for smart factor­ies as well as the power­ful and flex­ible mater­i­al flow sys­tems of tomorrow.

Togeth­er with OPC UA, umati should become the industry stand­ard as a uni­ver­sal inter­face and over­arch­ing machine lan­guage and there­fore enable machine build­ers and plan­ners of smart factor­ies to con­nect dif­fer­ent machines as well as ERP and MES sys­tems in terms of data tech­no­logy. This is a basic pre­requis­ite for real Industry 4.0 solutions.

What advant­ages does umati offer your com­pany and your cus­tom­ers? 

Har­mon­ized com­mu­nic­a­tion with the machines and the high­er-level pro­duc­tion plan­ning sys­tems will sim­pli­fy and accel­er­ate the imple­ment­a­tion of new func­tions and pro­cesses. Our cus­tom­ers will bene­fit from more flex­ible, effi­cient and trans­par­ent man­u­fac­tur­ing and pro­duc­tion pro­cesses and optim­ized mater­i­al flows. The umati part­ner­ship is inten­ded to make our activ­it­ies and goals in this regard vis­ible, to lead to the expan­sion of our net­work and to enable the devel­op­ment of new potentials.

How do you assess the expan­sion of the umati ini­ti­at­ive to the entire mech­an­ic­al engin­eer­ing sec­tor? 

In our view, a uni­fic­a­tion and stand­ard­iz­a­tion of com­mu­nic­a­tion inter­faces is a neces­sary pre­requis­ite for the real­iz­a­tion of Industry 4.0 solu­tions in future smart factor­ies.  We there­fore sup­port the umati ini­ti­at­ive and act­ively con­trib­ute to the dissemination.

About Demag 

Demag Cranes & Com­pon­ents is an inter­na­tion­ally act­ing com­pany and part of the Konecranes Group with more than 16,500 employ­ees at 600 loc­a­tions in 50 countries.

Demag is one of the lead­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers of cranes, crane com­pon­ents and drive tech­no­logy. Since 1819, for more than 200 years, the com­pany in Wet­ter an der Ruhr has been devel­op­ing innov­at­ive solu­tions for indus­tri­al use. This is about high­er per­form­ance val­ues, safety and reli­ab­il­ity in long-last­ing indus­tri­al use.

Demag is on its way to com­bin­ing these char­ac­ter­ist­ics with the new chal­lenges asso­ci­ated with “Industry 4.0”, so that employ­ees, machines and com­pon­ents can com­mu­nic­ate with each oth­er. This is why Demag is an industry driver in the I4.0 area and there­fore also for future equip­ment of smart factor­ies with smart mater­i­al flow. Demag has also been involved in the spe­cific­a­tion of the OPC UA Com­pan­ion Pro­file for indus­tri­al cranes and hoists for years.