The degree of automation in the German industry is steadily increasing

Written by Benjamin Kreuz | Aug 10, 2023 1:34:45 PM

The degree of automation in the German industry is steadily increasing. Worldwide, Germany is in fourth place, just behind Japan. Companies that deploy an industrial robot in time can gain a decisive edge over the competition.

But like almost all industries, many robot producers are currently experiencing delivery problems. This is just one reason why "Made in Germany" has become even more important at present.

Can robots be delivered quickly despite international crises?

The industry, and especially manufacturing, is having anything but an easy time at present in the face of global crises. The crisis of the Corona pandemic was followed by global upheavals and even war within Europe. Companies are feeling the economic consequences every day: Raw material prices are soaring to unimaginable heights, resources are in short supply, and worldwide logistics and freight problems are leading to delivery bottlenecks.

The robotics industry is not immune to this. Depending on the manufacturer, potential customers have to wait half a year or more for an industrial robot. This in turn leads to further worry lines in their own production. Companies cannot respond as hoped to the equally great challenge of acute or even permanent personnel bottlenecks with automation.

Robot manufacturers like fruitcore robotics owe the fact that it can be done differently to a decades-old strategy: Made in Germany! Now it stands out to source components and raw material largely from Germany and otherwise to rely on short distances within Europe. The same applies to the decision to design the Digital Robot HORST modularly and without (injection) molded parts.

The robot system as well as the complete standard periphery is thus immediately available, the fruitcore warehouse is filled. Two further reasons for the fast delivery capability: A very high proportion of the value creation takes place internally, HORST robots are manufactured in Villingen-Schwenningen. Secondly, as digital robots, they can take over many of the tasks of a conventional programmable logic controller (PLC). This means that fruitcore customers can avoid the current delivery times of up to twelve months.

Why should companies pay attention to reliable handling of digital data?

Now HORST is not just any industrial robot. As a digital robot, it includes the horstCOSMOS Industrial Internet of Things platform (IIoT) in addition to the horstFX hardware and operating software. Networked operation makes automation even more efficient, simple and manageable. Additional options are also available (for example, the retrieval of video tutorials or regular software updates). To prevent these benefits from becoming a potential data risk for companies, special care must be taken with connectivity.

After all, cyber attacks are now on the agenda. Most recently, this affected several major corporations, as they had to admit. At the beginning of August 2022, an attack on the central computer network of all German chambers of industry and commerce (IHK) made headlines. It led to problems that lasted for weeks: Websites had to be taken offline for security reasons, and IHK employees were unable to access the Internet or send e-mails.

As the association Deutschland sicher im Netz (DsiN) determined in its practical report for 2021/22, 42 percent of SMEs have already been exposed to IT attacks. According to the report, these attacks had a "noticeable" impact on three out of four companies. The attackers' backgrounds vary and can be criminal, political or even personal. For companies, on the other hand, they are disruptive, annoying or damaging to their reputation, regardless of the motivation for the attack. In the worst case, however, they can also cause considerable economic damage or even threaten a company's existence.

What happens to the data around a Digital Robot?

In view of such news, interested parties of the networked digital robots rightly want to know...

...what data a robot manufacturer collects and for what reasons.

As a manufacturer of a networked robot, fruitcore robotics also stands for transparency in the handling of data. By default, only telemetry data from HORST (for example axis movements and or temperature during operation) and error messages in case of malfunctions are recorded. These are stored on the internal horstCONTROL controller. The same applies to backups of program data and settings.

Optionally, process data on the robot's application can be collected and evaluated via the IIoT platform. Only name and address are recorded from the customer in order to be able to correctly assign the data of a robot system.

...what happens to this data and how networking with the IIoT takes place.

Depending on the possibility and request, HORST robot systems are either connected to the company network and thus to the Internet via LAN cable or via surf stick and SIM card as mobile connection, if in-house networking is not possible or desired. Then fruitcore robotics takes over all costs as a service!

Basically, users decide for themselves whether and how often they want to upload their data to horstCOSMOS. If they decide to do so, the HORST robots can be maintained via Predicitve Maintenance. This typical Internet-of-Things application makes it possible to predict when maintenance should probably be performed under the given operation. This saves costs and avoids unexpected downtime.

...whether the Internet connection is secure and where the data is stored.

HORST's communication is shielded via https (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure), which is also known from online banking, for example. Authentication takes place via a user name and password. Depending on the type of connection, either the company's firewall (LAN connection) or the controller's specially configured firewall (surfstick connection) protects against harmful influences.

fruitcore robotics stores data exclusively in Frankfurt am Main. The data does not leave Germany at any time.

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