“Software is expanding into every aspect of economic life, from tertiary production to shop level. Almost every activity today employs software, and adding digital services enhances the end customer experience.”

That is the view of ZF’s chief digital officer, René Deist, who outlined the company’s vision for leveraging data and the industrial cloud at the AMS Automotive Manufacturing Evolution Summit, which was held online December 7-8. From integrated demand and capacity planning to predictive maintenance and improved production performance to solving climate change issues, Deist highlighted the opportunities for automotive manufacturing made available through digitalisation.

Deist listed several areas currently undergoing a significant evolution at ZF manufacturing, and how the development and application of production digitalisation, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning have now become tools rather than inaccessible, complex technologies.