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In the event section of episode 16, we take a look back at the Plug & Play Munich Winter Summit. We're also pleased that platforms for digital events are getting better and better every year.
Why is Industry 4.0 so important?
After clarifying for ourselves, starting at minute 4:08, what we actually mean by Industry 4.0 – we're not just limiting ourselves to solutions that digitize factories, but also including those that modernize production processes or introduce new ones – let's take a look at the German economy. This is because it is significantly more dependent on industrial production than is the case in most industrialized nations. According to OECD figures Industrial production in Germany accounts for 21.2 percent of the country's total value added. Japan, at 20.8 percent, achieves a similar level, while South Korea's share is even slightly higher at 27.7 percent. Countries such as France (11 percent), Italy (16.6 percent), and the USA (11.7 percent), on the other hand, are significantly less dependent on industrial production. In Great Britain, the homeland of industrialization, only 9.7 percent of value added is attributable to industrial production.
This production process, so vital to the German economy, is being digitized. A survey by Bitkom shows how far this process has progressed: Almost 59 percent of industrial companies with more than 100 employees are already using special applications from the field of Industry 4.0. Two years ago, this figure was just 49 percent. At the same time, the proportion of companies for which Industry 4.0 is not an issue at all has decreased from 9 percent to 1 percent since 2018.
How Munich startups are working on the Smart Factory
Startups play an important role in this process, as they develop many of the solutions used. One of them is Emocean, which we'll introduce in more detail starting at minute 7:36. Founded in early 2020, the Munich-based startup is developing a solution for real-time machine communication. It's designed to enable a complete network of factories, which was likely the impetus for the Chinese company Justech Precision Industry to invest a six-figure sum in Emocean earlier this year.
The startup Erium (from minute 10:38), on the other hand, focuses its solution on process optimization in factories. This includes selecting the right parameters for production machines, optimizing forecasting predictions, and properly negotiating maintenance contracts. Erium enables process experts, engineers, and production managers to create the machine learning models themselves.
The next example (from minute 12:38) shows that Industry 4.0 solutions also work well in specific industries: Sewts is working on AI and robot software for fully automated textile production. The problem the founders want to solve with their startup is that industrial robots cannot predict how a textile will behave during a process, for example, whether it will wrinkle. To change this, Sewts trains robots with a human-like understanding of textile behavior using its own artificial intelligence.
New and optimized processes
In the area of optimized and new processes, Nebumind Our first example (starting at minute 16:00). The startup is developing software that monitors the quality of components throughout the entire production process. To do this, the software collects all production data it can obtain from machines and sensors during the manufacturing of a component. It then creates "digital component twins" that the worker can view on their laptop. This makes it easier to trace production errors and optimize production.
The startup is also breaking new ground Leon Nanodrugs, but for the chemical industry. With its MicroJetReactor (MJR) platform technology, the startup enables the production of nanoparticles from a wide variety of drug classes. The tiny particles created by the process possess advantageous solubility properties, thus solving the problem that many pharmaceuticals dissolve poorly or incompletely in water. We explain this in more detail starting at minute 19:10.
New materials in Industry 4.0
Finally, we will take a look at the topic of “new materials,” as these are also often included in the field of Industry 4.0, especially when digital technologies are involved. Our example is Blackwave (from minute 21:38). The startup produces carbon components for automotive and aerospace applications, using a process dating back to the 1960s, but with state-of-the-art materials. The process is also considered highly automated and cost-efficient, as it generates virtually no production waste.
Egym and Nokia Growth Partners
From minute 24:15 onwards, the focus is on the fitness startup Egym, which is located in a Series E financing 28 million euros in fresh capital from its existing investors. We take a closer look at the startup, which was also hit hard by the coronavirus crisis, and introduce you to the lead investor in this round, Nokia Growth Partners. The VC has been supporting startups on their journey since 2005.
