umati opens showroom in China

Exper­i­ence the future of con­nectiv­ity live in Shanghai

Inter­ested parties in China, too, can now explore umati more fully and exper­i­ence the bene­fits of open, stand­ard­ized OPC UA-based inter­faces live and in per­son. The joint con­nectiv­ity ini­ti­at­ive of the VDW (Ger­man Machine Tool Build­ers’ Asso­ci­ation) and VDMA (Ger­man Mech­an­ic­al Engin­eer­ing Industry Asso­ci­ation) opened the “Smart IoT in Pro­duc­tion” show­room in Pud­ong near Shang­hai, China, in Novem­ber 2023. The event was atten­ded by Deputy Con­sul Gen­er­al Lukas Mey­er of the Con­su­late Gen­er­al of the Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many in Shang­hai, Rep­res­ent­at­ive Yugang Zhao of the Free Trade Zone Admin­is­tra­tion and numer­ous invited guests. Dr. Alex­an­der Broos, Head of Research and Tech­no­logy at the VDW (Ger­man Machine Build­ers’ Asso­ci­ation), Frank­furt am Main, and umati pro­ject man­ager, is delighted with the new pos­sib­il­it­ies opened up by the show­room: “The future of con­nectiv­ity is digit­al – but some­times a phys­ic­al plat­form is needed: a place where people can share ideas and products can be presen­ted. The show­room high­lights in tan­gible form the bene­fits of umati – in China, one of the most import­ant and largest mar­kets for the industry.”

The show­room is a joint facil­ity of the VDW and the oper­at­or of the IMT (Inter­na­tion­al Machine Tool Cen­ter) in the Pilot Free Trade Zone, where the VDW already has its loc­al office. In future, com­pan­ies will be able to present their smart pro­duc­tion tech­no­logy to the pub­lic and meet poten­tial cus­tom­ers and part­ners at these premises cov­er­ing a total of roughly 500 square meters. Per­man­ent exhib­i­tion stands are avail­able and can be hired for this pur­pose. The first exhib­it­ors include the Chinese sub­si­di­ar­ies of Lieb­herr-Verzahn­tech­nik from Kempten and the United Grind­ing Group from Bern, Switzer­land. Dav­id Feng, Head of the Gear Cut­ting Machines & Auto­ma­tion Divi­sion at Lieb­herr-Verzahn­tech­nik in China, on being one of the first com­pan­ies to hire an exhib­i­tion stand in the show­room: “The ‘Smart IoT in Pro­duc­tion’ show­room in Shang­hai offers Chinese industry an applic­a­tion scene with real-time cap­ab­il­ity. This will help loc­al indus­tri­al users to exper­i­ence first-hand how umati can help them meet the future chal­lenges of smart man­u­fac­tur­ing trends.”

umati has a per­man­ent exhib­i­tion stand which it uses to present the pos­sib­il­it­ies of open data net­work­ing based on OPC UA. It also serves as a basis for cooper­a­tion with Chinese com­pan­ies and the loc­al con­nectiv­ity ini­ti­at­ive, NC Link. An intel­li­gent cal­iper from Mahr, Göt­tin­gen, and a mark­ing laser from Trumpf, Ditzin­gen, are being integ­rated into the umati dash­board in order to provide a live demon­stra­tion of net­work­ing from China. Georg Fisc­her Machin­ing Solu­tions, Schaff­hausen, Switzer­land, also con­nec­ted a machine in a live demon­stra­tion. Deputy Con­sul Gen­er­al Lukas Mey­er emphas­izes the import­ance of umati: “There is cur­rently a lot of buzz sur­round­ing Industry 4.0, mak­ing it now all the more import­ant to ensure full trans­par­ency. With its power­ful net­work of part­ners and its inter­na­tion­al approach, umati is lay­ing import­ant ground­work here. The ‘Smart IoT in Pro­duc­tion’ show­room rep­res­ents a fur­ther import­ant way for the net­work to raise its profile.”

Broos also emphas­izes the glob­al aspect of the show­room in China: “The dash­board is the same as the one used in the rest of the world. This offers fur­ther proof that there is no reas­on for the con­sist­ent imple­ment­a­tion and use of open data inter­faces to stop at nation­al bor­ders. Con­nectiv­ity is a glob­al issue in mech­an­ic­al engin­eer­ing.”  The show­room is open to all com­pan­ies based in the IMT as well as all umati part­ners in China. It can also be used as an event loc­a­tion. Any­one inter­ested can find out more at the fol­low­ing address: https://umati.org/dcs/

Pic­ture Sub­title: Offi­cial open­ing of the “Smart IoT in Pro­duc­tion” show­room in Shang­hai in Novem­ber 2023. (Copy­right: VDW)