76th NAMUR Annual General Meeting

Continuing advances in the digitalisation and networking of industrial added value processes is leading to a fundamental change in industry and facilitating the development of new productivity levers. Modern industrial plants are distinguished by an extremely high level of complexity. In addition to requiring management, major data volumes also need to be both available and up to date at all times from the planning to the operational phase. Powerful and intelligent tools for the integration of planning, operation and maintenance are decisive when it comes to ensuring integrated engineering over the entire product and plant lifecycle.

NAMUR has selected the topic of Integrated Engineering as the focus of its 76th Annual General Meeting on the 7th/8th November in Bad Neuenahr. This year Siemens AG has been engaged as partner for the Annual General Meeting, a company providing innovative solution concepts for the entire lifecycle of a plant based on its broad product portfolio. Individual process steps can be linked intelligently using industrial IT and industrial software, thus optimising the entire production process. The fact that Siemens is working on complete data consistency and data harmonisation between the shop floor and top floor makes the company an ideal partner for the Annual General Meeting in 2013. It is precisely this approach which can be considered a prerequisite when it comes to achieving the Industry 4.0 vision.

Options which integrated engineering already encompasses today and how consistent communication is moving will be illustrated by Eckard Eberle, CEO Industrial Automation Systems, Siemens and Hans-Georg Kumpfmüller, CEO Sensors and Communication, Siemens in their plenary presentation. Integrated engineering involves the interplay of all necessary tools, including plant management, the process control system and equipment planning/configuration.
“Siemens has supplemented its portfolio in a systematic manner since the turn of the millennium through its own developments and the acquisition of different software companies. As an obvious trendsetter, Siemens now aims to reduce product launch durations by 50% and more. I regard the NAMUR Annual General Meeting as an opportunity to demonstrate to users how they can enhance the cost effectiveness, efficiency, quality and transparency of their plant”, says Eckard Eberle, CEO Industrial Automation Systems, Siemens.

Numerous interesting workshop contributions from NAMUR work areas and international cooperation partners and further presentations on the main topic from this year’s Annual General Meeting partner await participants.
Following the announcement of the winner of the NAMUR Award 2013 on Friday morning, an award presented for the best scientific examination thesis (diploma / masters and promotion) in the field of automation technology for process engineering systems, participants may look forward to further attractive contributions relating to current issues. NAMUR, for its part, will not neglect to address the primary topic of Industry 4.0.

With an interesting programme on innovative issues and Siemens as a partner, the NAMUR Annual General Meeting promises once again to be an important event in the world of automation this year.