Québec is accentuating and formalizing its partnership with Germany in order to develop the manufacturing industries of tomorrow.
The Hanover Fair, which takes place until Friday, is the global high mass of robotic industrial processes and the smart factory. Geneviève Bourgoing made the trip to choose a demonstration to bring back to Quebec to inspire local businesses.
“We are significantly behind in terms of productivity in Quebec. We must accelerate the implementation of digital projects among our industrialists,” believes the Senior Director of Business Support at Développement économique Longueuil. “You have to look at what people who are even more advanced than us are doing,” she adds, adding that Germany is a pioneer in this area.
Mme Bourgoing represents the Network of Industrial 4.0 Centers of Expertise in Quebec, which signed a three-year agreement Thursday morning with the Labs Network Industry 4.0 (LNI 4.0), a German organization that leads an international collaborative network in this area. It includes countries like the United States, China, Japan, and other European countries. Quebec is the leading Canadian contributor.
Since there is not much more abstract than digital, Quebec and German organizations have in common to offer SMEs laboratories where they can see and experiment with technologies adapted to their reality. There are four in Quebec and about fifty in Germany. “Each year, we will bring a new demonstration to Quebec, which we will choose during the fair. Among the demonstrations offered, there are those that can help optimize the plant’s energy consumption. There is also the connected value chain, allowing suppliers to follow the evolution of each of the products in real time”, specifies Mr.me Bourgoing.
German industries, the most automated in the Western world, are taking the next step, what the Germans call “industry 4.0”.
“Automation is robots. 4.0 is how to connect machines and factory workshops together. It cannot be done without going through automation first,” explains Dominik Rohrmus, Chief Technology Officer at LNI 4.0.
The advantages of 4.0 are numerous, according to Anja Simon, general manager of LNI 4.0. This involves, for example, increasing its productivity, countering the labor shortage and monitoring its products throughout the supply and manufacturing chain. For the organization, it is very important to establish international norms and standards for these developing technologies.
Mutually beneficial relationship
“Our intention with our Canadian partner is to exchange ideas and see what opportunities will emerge,” said Mr. Rohrmus in the bright Munich offices of the Siemens company, which supports his organization.
While a large number of Quebec SMEs are only taking their first digital steps, others are already making their mark in Germany. This is the case of Laserax, whose head office is in Quebec, which exhibits some of its technologies at the Hanover Fair. The company supplies machines equipped with lasers to major vehicle auto parts manufacturers.
“Lasers are the tool of choice in battery manufacturing lines. They can mark parts for traceability, clean, weld very quickly to increase the production rate, do texturing to improve heat exchange and increase service life,” reports Laserax President Xavier Godmaire.
His company embraced the 4.0 wave about three years ago, he says. “We can connect to any of our equipment anywhere in the world, carry out maintenance and updates, change the parameters of the machines”, lists Mr. Godmaire. In addition, laser marking is part of the same movement, because it makes it possible “to trace information to access data and be able to isolate the causes of automobile recalls”.
Social and environmental objectives
A major player in traceability in Europe is now Optel, a Quebec company with an office near Munich. Optel notably creates machines that print and read identification numbers that can be assigned to various products. In Germany, their main customer is the pharmaceutical industry. Projects are also underway with the automotive industry to monitor the life cycle of batteries, from the mine to the car.
“Even large manufacturers don’t have a clear picture of their supply chain. But it’s really important for them to be able to demonstrate that their suppliers do not use forced labor or child labor and that their production respects environmental and social laws”, underlines the vice-president of the company, Martin Hirschbichler.
In Optel’s offices in the suburbs of Munich, the latter presents a diagram of the process being tested. Each batch of lithium, cobalt, graphite, silicone and copper that goes into the composition of batteries is assigned a numerical identifier. The desired information is recorded there, such as the place and date of production, its carbon footprint and the fact that no forced labor has been detected on site.
The anodes, cathodes, insulators, electrolytes, sensors, wires, cables and other parts that make up the battery then get their own numbers. At the end, the drum module also has a number, which contains all the previous data. This detailed information also promotes the recycling of its components.
We find ourselves here at the intersection of industry “5.0”, which is already part of the discussions, according to Geneviève Bourgoing. “It’s about putting people and the environment at the centre,” she emphasizes.
We bet that there will still be plenty of room for collaboration, in order to develop best practices, with several countries around the world.
This report was financed thanks to the support of the Transat International Journalism Fund.The duty.