At Siemens’ Electronics Factory in Erlangen, Germany, engineers design and build the world-renowned SINAMICS family of variable frequency drives. As “customer zero” for Siemens solutions, the factory tests and refines new technologies for global industry.
Learn how the Erlangen team uses cutting-edge innovations to reduce energy use, shorten time to market, and improve quality.
Since 2021, the factory has reduced the combustion of natural gas, lowering carbon emissions by about 50%. It aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030 and eliminate the use of fossil energy sources at the site.
Using production and building data, energy managers implemented intelligent control of the hall’s ventilation system, cutting its power consumption by 70% while maintaining stable air quality.
The design of the new variable frequency drives maintains high performance while optimizing for efficiency and reducing size. The resulting drives use 40% of the material and are 50% the size of previous devices.
IT/OT convergence merges automation systems with modern IT technologies such as cloud and edge computing. The challenge lies in in integrating both legacy and new equipment.
At the Erlangen factory, a low-code application on a Siemens Industrial Edge device establishes the data connection. Machine data is processed and used to optimize production and operations. A citizen-analytics approach enables every employee to turn operational data into actionable insight.
The Erlangen factory develops Digital Twins for production and beyond, creating precise virtual replicas of real systems. Operators can test and optimize processes without interrupting actual operations.
One example is the simulation of material flow on the shop floor, where Automated Guided Vehicles transport materials to production lines. Using advanced tools such as Tecnomatix Plant Simulation and Process Simulate, the team can identify and implement optimal routes and cycle times. This approach has reduced material circulation by about 40% and increased overall efficiency.
The factory applies Industrial AI in SINAMICS production to raise quality and increase efficiency. Intelligent automation takes over repetitive, low-value tasks so skilled workers can focus on innovation and oversight.
Using affordable sensor technology and adaptive control, AI handles complex operations and improves collaboration between humans and robots. To train AI for bin picking, engineers use Digital Twins of the robot, bin, and components in realistic simulations. This process is faster and more efficient than programming each part or using prefabricated inlays.
Siemens Xcelerator plays a very important role because it allows us to quickly integrate new technologies into our ecosystem so that we can deploy them very quickly.