Siemens has brought together more than 200 industry leaders to discuss the role of digital technologies in building a globally competitive manufacturing sector in the Middle East.
Officials and executives from the government and private sectors attended the SPACe (Siemens Process Automation Community) event, with keynote speakers including Klaus Helmrich, member, managing board, Siemens AG, Dr Bakheet Al Katheeri, CEO, Mubadala Petroleum, and Qasem Al Kayoumi, technical centre manager, ADNOC.
“The industrial world faces a common set of challenges, including boosting productivity and efficiency, and ensuring maximum protection against cyber security threats,” said Helmrich. “External factors can put pressure on an entire industry, bringing OPEX and lifecycle costs into sharper focus. Digitalisation is the answer to this. The Middle East has the potential to leapfrog the third industrial revolution to become a world player in Industrie 4.0, and Siemens is driving this transformation,” added Helmrich.
Held in Abu Dhabi during 27-28 September, SPACe is a platform for companies to take an active part in shaping the region’s industrial sector through information and best-practice sharing, networking, technology deep-dives, expert insight and hands-on experience with the latest Siemens technology.
“Industry is a key driver of economic diversity, growth, job creation and stability in the Middle East, but companies which do not embrace Industrie 4.0 and digitalise their processes will not be able to remain competitive,” said Uwe Troeger, senior executive vice president, process industries, drives and digital Factory, Siemens Middle East.
“The region’s mix of industrial capability has enormous potential. Regardless of whether we are talking about refining petrochemicals, making medicine or 3D printing aircraft parts, digitalisation is the key to being fast, efficient, reliable and competitive in an increasingly globalised marketplace,” added Troeger.
As part of the community event, Siemens bolstered its industrial digitalisation portfolio by launching the newest version of the company’s Simatic PCS 7 process control system. The latter controls and monitors continuous manufacturing processes such as those in chemical plants, the water and wastewater sector and the pharmaceuticals industry.
It allows manufacturers to respond quickly to changes in market requirements, ensures continuous operation and allows greater visibility over a process. The new version supports the world-leading Industrial Ethernet standard Profinet with two new distributed I/O lines for end-to-end digitalisation down to the field level, giving plant operators greater flexibility, future-proofing and creating a building block to the digital enterprise.
Simatic PCS 7 is installed in various manufacturing applications across the Middle East.
