New competition: Factory software of the year
For the first time, the "Factory Software of the Year" was awarded in February 2018 by the Application Center Industry 4.0 at the Chair of Information Systems, Processes and Systems at the University of Potsdam.
The public presentations for the "Factory Software of the Year" were presented to a renowned jury of consultants, scientists and media representatives. The award ceremony took place as part of the "Factory Software Congress 2018", organized by the Anwendungszentrum Industrie 4.0 in cooperation with the Berlin-based GITO publishing house in mid-February at the Sheraton Airport Hotel and Conference Center in Frankfurt.
Suppliers of software solutions for the factory were eligible to apply in the categories of process control, logistics software, visualization, MES, security, Internet of Things, Industry 4.0 and complete solutions. The application documents were to comment on various criteria on two pages each (or a maximum of twelve pages). In addition, there was a short company presentation on one page.
Prizes were awarded based on performance in the following criteria:
Concrete customer benefit: In this criterion, a customer's opinion on the concrete benefit resulting from the introduction of the system - for example, on the basis of profitability considerations - should be explained.
Platform suitability: This is about the question of whether the factory software is suitable for use on platforms and whether connection points already exist. The (planned) technical implementation should be presented here.
Interoperability / Standards: What standards are used in factory software to ensure interoperability?
Brownfield approach: The jury evaluates how the factory software is integrated into existing software and architecture concepts and what the process concept looks like.
Customer communication: A brief presentation of initiatives to promote awareness, presentation and communication of customer awareness and own competence is required.
Research and development: This criterion is intended to present the activities in the field of research and development and to explain any cooperation with research institutions.
The presentation was embedded in a two-day congress, which mainly covered topics such as "Integration of Factory Software in Industry 4.0", "Digitalization of the Factory", "Manufacturing Analytics", "Industry 4.0 Technologies" and "Production Systems".
In the five categories Internet of Things, Industry 4.0, Process Support, Complete Solution and Logistics, the following companies competed to present their system to the jury.
The winners were finally:
Logistics: ZV Friedichshafen
IoT: CONTACT Software GmbH
Industry 4.0: software4production GmbH
Complete solutions: CSB-System AG
Logistics: Jungheinrich System Solutions GmbH
