Process industry: ready for digitization

Siemens organized the first virtual edition of the Process Industry Summit on September 17 and 18. Because there is a lot to talk about now that digitalization is also making its appearance there. For example, Siemens developed its first digital process twin for the pharma industry.

Text Valérie Couplez |  Image Siemens

Normally, the Siemens Process Industry Summit should have been held in March. But then came corona. That a virtual version now followed in September after all has everything to do with the digital acceleration currently being felt in the process industry. Senior Vice President Digital Industries Eddy Nelis explains: "In 2011, the term Industry 4.0 was first dropped, with a strong focus on discrete manufacturing at the time. After all, those production processes, which mainly consist of movements, allow themselves to be easier to automate and digitize than the complex tangle of chemical, physical and mechanical processes in the process industry. Now, almost a decade later, considerable strides are also being made in the process industry. After all, digitization is the way to reduce or even completely eliminate any kind of waste (in quality, speed, time, cost). A process further accelerated by corona and the need for remote solutions.

So it is no coincidence that Siemens has just succeeded in Belgium in achieving this first of a digital process twin.

Digital process twin

That Siemens had a lot to say at the Process Industry Virtual Summit is beyond dispute. Earlier this year, it announced an absolute world first. Together with ATOS, Siemens succeeded in creating a digital process twin. An industrial process could be completely recreated and simulated virtually. Nelis: "This opens up gigantic perspectives for the process industry to optimize existing processes and achieve faster time to market for new ones. Everything can be tested virtually, before investments have to be made. This is in line with the reactivity now required of the pharmaceutical sector by Covid-19. We are therefore doing everything we can to support companies in the search for a vaccine and its production." A crucial step in the development of the digital process twin was the addition of machine learning to the simulation software. "Artificial intelligence will be a gamechanger in the coming years," Nelis emphasizes. "By running through thousands of simulations, the AI learns, for example, how to optimize the injection of the various fluids in a process while keeping the quality within the predetermined limits. The first step in this is building databases of data. The more data, the more connections the AI can make and the more optimized the system will eventually work."

Eddy Nelis: "The digital process twin opens up gigantic perspectives for the process industry to optimize existing processes and achieve faster time to market for new ones."

Belgian success

The beauty of this development is that it was a true Belgian achievement. "Belgium is an attractive region for pharma companies, partly because of the government's initiatives to keep R&D affordable here. With our own Centre of Competence for Pharma (since 2000), we have a team with solid technical baggage on board, versed in the challenges facing the process industry. So it's no coincidence that it's precisely here that we've succeeded in realizing this first digital process twin," Nelis says proudly. Today Antwerp has the world's second largest cluster of chemical companies. "If we want to stay at the head of the pack, now is the time to invest. What we proved at the Process Industry Virtual Summit is that there are references that show what added value is already possible in practice today," says Nelis.     

Digitization is the way to reduce any kind of waste (in quality, speed, time, cost). A process further accelerated by corona and the need for remote solutions.