The possibility to consult the digital maturity of your own company with the experts while drinking a beer that is tapped by a robot. All this in the backdrop of the Technological Island full of innovation. This is how the National Centre for Industry 4.0 will be presented for the first time ever at the International Engineering Fair in Brno (MSV) this year. As part of the Digital Factory 2.0, it installed a Technology Island, which will include a varied exposition based on the installed 5G industrial network and robotic applications that will use it. For help, the National Center for Industry 4.0 invited partners T-Mobile, the Research and Innovation Center on Advanced Industrial Production (RICAIP) and Česká spořitelna. Moderated discussions of leading personalities of the Czech industry on currently burning topics await visitors on the digital stage. What to invest in? And where to get the funding for it?
The exposition of the National Centre for Industry 4.0 at the engineering fair takes into account the current situation. Attention is therefore focused on those solutions that have proven to be an effective helper in practical crisis management. The emphasis is on increasing added value, working with data, strategic planning of the company’s development, as well as material and energetic sustainability. A sophisticated strategy together with technologies such as 5G, digital twin and smart applications that built on data are the only way to fight the ever-increasing demands on quality, variability and speed of production and cost of resources.
“The need to invest in digitization, robotization and automation – as well as education, research and service quality – is now more urgent than ever. Only in this way can Czech companies be more successful in creating higher added value, which will not only increase their competitiveness, but also reduce the share of expenses on increasingly expensive energy and materials. Digitization is not a buzzword, but a path to survival,“ says Pavel Kračmár, a member of the board of directors of Česká spořitelna.
„In a few years of our activity, we have earned the status of those who not only create and present visions for the industrial production of the future, but also those who, thanks to their technological partners and state-of-the-art infrastructure, implement them and push them to the limits of what is possible. This is also confirmed by the current connection between NCP 4.0 – RICAIP – T-Mobile and Česká spořitelna“, says Jaroslav Lískovec, director of the National Center for Industry 4.0 and continues: „At MSV, we are not showing „just“ a 5G network, but already functional and practical applications using the properties of this network such as high speed and stability. For the introduction of innovations into production, the critical infrastructure of testbeds for Industry 4.0 in Prague and Brno is financed by the Czech-German center RICAIP.“
How can a robotic bar save you in a crisis? The naturalness with which he manages to serve you the golden drink is inspiring. The use of sophisticated machines in production can significantly increase its efficiency and reduce the error rate. „The robotic bartender is not just a demonstration that even such a delicate job as serving beer can be easily handled by today’s robots. The given application is also a project in which we monitor the energy efficiency of tap equipment,“ explains the connection between technology and gastronomy Pavel Burget, director of the Testbed for Industry 4.0 at the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics CTU. „We also prepared a robot with manual guidance for robot-human cooperation in a 5G network environment, tailored for the exhibition at MSV.“
„With the help of digitization and automation, we are trying to increase the competitiveness of Czech industry in the long term. Private campus 5G networks will not only help simplify production processes and work with minimal error, but also, for example, optimize energy consumption to a minimum without affecting production or operation,“ says Luboš Lukasík, commercial director of the Enterprise Market division of T-Mobile Czech Republic and he adds: „Cooperation with the National Center for Industry 4.0 is key in this, as Testbed’s research environment can practically show companies what benefits a private 5G campus network can bring them. The engineering fair is such a great opportunity to show 5G networks to the wider public, who don’t have as many opportunities to see and try this technology in practice.“
