Digital innovation - what does it mean in context of cutting business?
Digital technologies can address all sorts of challenges that cutting businesses face nowadays - demand for productivity and quality enhancement, or lack of skilled operators. Some concepts like the “connected factory” are widely known and accepted already. Real-time production and inventory data enable efficient planning and scheduling processes. People responsible for monitoring cutting production can do so remotely without being physically present on the shop floor. MicroStep delivers such functionality with its MicroStep Production Management software and the MicroStep Dashboard. But digital technologies can offer much more. Machine learning will compensate for the lack of skilled operators as decisions and actions can be based more on data analysis and less on experience. Parameter adjustment or tool wear forecast is an example. In order to gain insight a big amount of data must be collected from the process and analysed through complex mathematical models and algorithms to identify patterns and trends. Based on the results the machine can make autonomous decisions. In case the correct algorithms are used, machines will learn faster and more reliably than a human being.
As a member of the High-level Strategy Group on Industrial Technologies within the EU Research and Innovation programme Horizon 2020, MicroStep CEO Eva Stejskalová is advising the EU Commission on Key Enabling Technologies
