Siemens Industrial Copilot expanded, adopted by thyssenkrupp
thyssenkrupp Automation Engineering integrated the Siemens Industrial Copilot for Engineering into a battery machine used for battery quality inspections on electric cars, and plans to use the genAI-powered assistant at scale engineering machines at thyssenkrupp's global locations from 2025 onwards. The Copilot assists engineers in creating TIA Portal projects, developing structured control language (SCL) code faster for programmable logic controllers, integrating code into TIA Portal, and generating machine visualization in WinCC Unified, reducing repetitive tasks like data management and sensor configuration. Separately, the Siemens Electronics Factory in Erlangen, Germany implemented the Copilot for Operations across its soldering machines, helping operators and maintenance engineers translate machine error codes into natural language and suggest solutions, reducing machine downtime and production bottlenecks. The Industrial Copilot for Operations is planned to be offered as an on-premises hardware-software bundle with the Simatic Industrial PC, powered by NVIDIA NIM microservices, so no internet connection is required and data is processed and stored on local shopfloor hardware. Natural language processing is carried out via Azure OpenAI Service on Microsoft Cloud.
Overview
thyssenkrupp Automation Engineering integrated the Siemens Industrial Copilot for Engineering into a battery machine used for battery quality inspections on electric cars, and plans to use the genAI-powered assistant at scale engineering machines at thyssenkrupp's global locations from 2025 onwards. The Copilot assists engineers in creating TIA Portal projects, developing structured control language (SCL) code faster for programmable logic controllers, integrating code into TIA Portal, and generating machine visualization in WinCC Unified, reducing repetitive tasks like data management and sensor configuration. Separately, the Siemens Electronics Factory in Erlangen, Germany implemented the Copilot for Operations across its soldering machines, helping operators and maintenance engineers translate machine error codes into natural language and suggest solutions, reducing machine downtime and production bottlenecks. The Industrial Copilot for Operations is planned to be offered as an on-premises hardware-software bundle with the Simatic Industrial PC, powered by NVIDIA NIM microservices, so no internet connection is required and data is processed and stored on local shopfloor hardware. Natural language processing is carried out via Azure OpenAI Service on Microsoft Cloud.
The challenge
Competitive pressure and a lack of skilled labor are major challenges for industrial companies today. Making generative AI industrial-grade and bringing it to the shopfloor holds significant potential for overcoming these challenges and improving productivity.
The solution
thyssenkrupp Automation Engineering integrated the Siemens Industrial Copilot for Engineering into a battery machine used for battery quality inspections on electric cars, and plans to use the genAI-powered assistant at scale engineering machines at thyssenkrupp's global locations from 2025 onwards. The Copilot assists engineers in creating TIA Portal projects, developing structured control language (SCL) code faster for programmable logic controllers, intelligently integrating the code into the TIA Portal, and generating machine visualization in WinCC Unified, reducing repetitive tasks like automating data management and sensor configuration. Separately, the Siemens Electronics Factory in Erlangen, Germany implemented the Copilot for Operations across its soldering machines, helping operators and maintenance engineers translate machine error codes into natural language and suggest solutions based on the machine's details and history. The Industrial Copilot for Operations is planned to be offered as an on-premises hardware-software bundle with the Simatic Industrial PC, powered by NVIDIA NIM microservices, so no internet connection is required and data is processed and stored on local shopfloor hardware. Natural language processing is carried out via the Azure OpenAI Service of the Microsoft Cloud.
Reported business value
The Industrial Copilot helps engineering teams reduce repetitive and monotonous tasks, work more efficiently, optimize processes, and drive innovation. At the Siemens Electronics Factory, machine downtime can be significantly reduced, production bottlenecks can be resolved faster, and shift handovers work more efficiently.
Sources
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This record was researched and written with AI assistance, and its claims were checked against the sources above. (EU AI Act art. 50 transparency notice.)
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