The manufacturing industry is undergoing a significant transformation, with artificial intelligence (AI) playing a central role in driving business efficiency and innovation. In this dynamic era, partners serve as technological innovators, trusted advisors, and multipliers of innovation. This article, featuring insights from Sven Denecken of SAP, highlights how smart manufacturing and AI are shifting traditional paradigms and creating new opportunities for partners in the discrete manufacturing sector.
At Hannover Messe, SAP reveals how its partners and itself are pushing the boundaries of traditional manufacturing with AI-driven solutions. These partners, operating at the frontier of technological innovation, continuously break established technology rules by introducing every new solution and innovation they bring to the table.
Providing the business AI solutions that our manufacturing customers need to thrive in highly competitive and often volatile markets is crucial. Whether these solutions are developed by an SAP partner, SAP itself, or collaboratively, the focus is always on delivering value.
Solutions that enable efficient, accurate, and agile manufacturing and supply chains by integrating processes, removing data silos, and seamlessly connecting manufacturing and supply chain applications with the whole of the business.
Solutions that enhance decision-making capabilities by using AI to analyze data from internal and external sources in context, producing insights that increase the resilience of manufacturing operations and help customers strike the right balance among cost, sustainability, and customer satisfaction.
Many of the company executives I have recently spoken with are eager to discuss Manufacturing-X, a growing cross-industry initiative where companies across various manufacturing value chains come together within a global business ecosystem to define a standard that enables them to share production and supply chain data across platforms and technologies to further increase resilience, sustainability, and competitiveness.
Partners including Accenture, Camelot ITLab, Cideon Software & Services, FORCAM, Kinexon, Systema, and TeamViewer are all exhibiting their solutions alongside their SAP counterparts, demonstrating the true power of partnership and innovation at every turn.
One standout example is Kinexon's OS extension to the SAP Digital Manufacturing solution, which orchestrates the shop floor and automates previously manual processes, improving production speed, quality, and asset utilization. It provides customers with an essential pathway to modular production and autonomous manufacturing.
As we continue to embrace AI and collaborative innovations in the manufacturing sector, the role of partners becomes increasingly crucial. By leveraging resources like the new SAP AI Launchpad and generative AI hub, our partners are introducing industry innovations that will add immediate value for customers in both the discrete and process manufacturing spaces, ensuring they have the intelligent digital tools needed to be future-ready.
By visiting the SAP space at Hannover Messe, attendees can experience innovation and partnership in perfect harmony firsthand. An electric injection molding machine developed by Fanuc with support from partner Syntax will be cranking out made-to-order drinking vessels—a small but meaningful taste of what's possible for partners in our collaborative, customer-focused, and business AI-driven cloud ecosystem.
The future of manufacturing is here, driven by AI and strengthened by robust partnerships, setting a new standard for industry-wide cooperation and technological advancement.