Automate 2023 Recap

The Industry 4.0 Accelerator was well represented at the Automate Show, held in Detroit at Huntington Place from Monday, May 22 through Thursday, May 25, 2023. Automate featured over 750 exhibitors, 200 speakers and 25,000 attendees and included workshops with industry giants, news-making keynotes, networking events, innovation competitions and live demonstrations. The show will transition to McCormick Place in Chicago for 2024 before returning to Detroit again in 2025.

Nine Technology Clients from the Industry 4.0 Accelerator exhibited at the show including DeepView, Invisible AI, Khenda, LaunchPad, Lincode, Liberty Reach, PicoMES, UnitX and Wheel.me.

Deepview (Left) and Khenda (Right) also participated in the Phoenix Contact Startup Challenge. This event featured eight of the most unique startups in the space of advanced automation. Aykan Ekici from Khenda and Eli Davis from Deepview did a wonderful job of presenting their solutions to a full house of attendees in the Automate Show Theater.

Several of our Corporate Partners also exhibited including Siemens, Promess, Phoenix Contact, Perceptron and Sinto America. General feedback indicated attendance and booth traffic were up compared to last year.

As expected, artificial intelligence (AI) was a topic of much interest by show attendees. Representatives from General Motors, NVIDIA, GE Research and Microsoft discussed the new developments in artificial intelligence that have been making big headlines. Bing, ChatGPT, Baird, and other large-language models (LLMs) are changing how we interact with data and information. It’s already clear that these new developments will have vast implications in finance, healthcare, and software development. This group shed light on how LLMs and other AI advances will change the game in automation and manufacturing in general.

Barbara Humpton, President & CEO, Siemens Corporation USA gave an inspiring keynote address on Wednesday morning of the show. Barbara spoke about how the term “Industry 4.0” went mainstream only about 10 years ago. Yet in that short time, we have achieved milestones in digitalization that all but the most optimistic of us would have thought impossible. We can commission virtually. We can run incredibly small lot sizes efficiently. We are gathering, storing and analyzing quantities of data that would have staggered our ten-year-ago selves. And we have proven that we can use that data to simulate and optimize around quality, cost, sustainability, and many other outcomes. She then challenged the audience to Imagine what the next ten years will bring and closed by introducing Siemens Xcelerate, a new, open ecosystem that enables co-creation between Siemens, customers and certified partners.

Several representatives from Michigan’s manufacturing ecosystem provided an overview of “How Public-Private Partnerships are Preparing Today’s Companies for a Smart Future”. Natalie Chmniko (SVP, Small Business Solutions, MEDC), Ingrid Tighe (President, Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center), Cynthia Hutchison (CEO, US Center for Advanced Manufacturing) and Hiedi Devroy (CEO, Prosper-Tech Machine & Tool) discussed the transition to emerging and advanced technologies is redefining manufacturing from the ground floor up. By leveraging a cross-collaborative approach, Team Michigan has established partnerships through its Industry 4.0 initiative to implement, empower and prepare small and medium-sized manufacturers to successfully navigate and thrive within the changing landscape of manufacturing technology. The conversation focused on the benefits and challenges of deploying and transitioning to I4.0 technologies and how state support and resources can help to ensure today’s manufacturers continue to thrive into tomorrow.

Scott Phillips, i4.0 Accelerator Program Director and founding member of the i4.0 Club, provided a live walkabout during the show, highlighting some of the more unique and interesting solutions on the show floor.