Stefanie Flaeper, Managing Director at transfluid

Q1: As the transition to Industry 4.0 picks up speed, how do you see the future of the metalworking industry? What are your views on challenges and trends facing the metalworking industry?

Anyone who considers the changes with some foresight is on a good path to a positive future. High-tech for effective pipe processing is the key to progress for many technologies and an important solution driver in all area of daily work and life, for example, when you consider machine and medical technology. Over the course of digital development, we also discovered completely new solutions, which ensure even more efficiency in heavily connected processes. Like I said, anyone who’s forward-thinking and is ready to approach digitalisation challenges and the accompanying shift in thinking openly will be successful. The demand will continue to grow together with increasing productivity. We’re already witnessing this development, for example, with our individual automation systems t motion and our tube bending software t control.

The relevance of highly rigid materials in lightweight construction continues to increase. In the automobile area, the trend is developing towards low quantities together with flexible automatic production, i.e. small quantities and individual pieces in automatic processes. This results in advantages like employee-independent production, process reliability, and influence on traceable processes, for example module assembly. Overall, there’s more planning reliability. Of course, the potential for mechanical engineering is being defined worldwide by automation and digitalisation. I see the clearest opportunities and chance to grow in this area. We’re expanding these trends ourselves with our own innovative power.

-- Stefanie Flaeper, Managing Director at transfluid

International Metalworking News for Asia- December 2017 issue

It is clear; the market for connected equipment and devices will continue to grow. But, as product designers and engineers face the challenges of building smart products, they are realising they need faster, better, smarter tools with which to create them. Part of that solution is to use tools capable of bringing all the disparate processes onto a single, unified platform.

Global high-tech companies are melding Industry 4.0, automation and big data to create metalworking equipment, tools and solutions that will build empires in the industrial manufacturing. They are developing healthy ecosystems that can carry their strategies and values far.

Whatever the situation, Industry 4.0 is here, and manufacturers all over the world are doing their best to prepare. At this issue’s 2018 Outlook Report, industry leaders and senior executives share their views and initiatives on Industry 4.0, and the current and future of metalworking industry, as part of their overall efforts toward automation and big data in manufacturing.

The adoption of Industry 4.0 is indeed a major deportation from traditional manufacturing culture. It not only needs new systems and new set of skills but also a new mind-set, to create a new culture to drive Industry 4.0.

A true digital enterprise will deliver value through physical products or services at the core, through a network of customers and suppliers augmented by digital interfaces and data driven industrial digital ecosystems. These developments will profoundly change individual enterprise, as well as transform market dynamics across the globe.

Although this vision of the future of manufacturing may still be years away for some factories in South East Asia, things are clearly headed in the right direction. InternationalMetalworking News for Asia helps bring Industry 4.0 to life for companies in the region through our motivating technical articles.

Of course, there’s plenty more stories and topics aside from Industry 4.0. Take a moment to read the magazine’s latest print issue or download your copy on iTunes and Play Store. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and like our page on Facebook.