Digitalization is important for the future of automation, but how businesses get there is the critical discussion. It’s not about solving all problems by day one of production. Instead it is pinpointing pain points today and incrementally adopting it across the organization. Our co-host Rainer Brehm chatted with us about his perspective and the ways businesses are already adopting the technological side of digitalization.

But the real gains to be made are in the changing mindset and understanding where digitalization can be deployed to bring the best returns on investment. While digitalization is partly a technological transformation, it is just as much a social one – as we’ll see with his example from Audi where engineers and operators were gaining inspiration from their peers.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

(00:00) How to start with SDA

(09:27) Fundamental changes in production systems

(13:33) Empowering operators with intelligent systems

Learn more about Docker and Kubernetes

About the voices:

Rainer Brehm is the Chief Operations Officer (COO) for the automation business and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Siemens Digital Industries. In these roles, he drives the strategic advancement of Siemens’ automation portfolio and leads the development of technologies such as Industrial AI and Software-Defined Automation to unlock the full potential of automation. His focus is on making production more adaptive, resilient, and sustainable. His vision is an automated automation that solves unknown tasks independently.

Nick Finberg is a technical marketing writer and coordinator for Software-Defined Everything, with a background in Nuclear Engineering. He has worked with experts to cover many industries and topics including Automotive, Battery, sustainability, and systems engineering.