Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence“AI must be done together”

Mr. Gräter, what is IPAI’s goal?

Gräter: The state of Baden-Würt­tem­berg wanted to invest in the future success of its economy and iden­ti­fied AI as a key topic for this. The aim of IPAI is there­fore to ensure that arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence is substan­tially inte­grated into the prod­ucts and processes, i.e., the value chains, of our partner compa­nies. We are a region of medium-sized global market leaders and family-owned compa­nies. But if we miss out on AI as a compet­i­tive factor, we will no longer continue our long history of world market lead­er­ship. Because we will suffer from disad­van­tages in terms of costs and inno­va­tion. We are convinced that compa­nies can only be fit for the future with AI.

A sustain­able future only works with AI – do you agree, Mr. Gess­mann?

Gess­mann: Yes! We see exactly the same at SCHUNK. That is why we have been a strategic partner of IPAI from the very begin­ning. We see that AI helps us to remain compet­i­tive and inno­v­a­tive – both in our own manu­fac­turing and in our prod­ucts and services. When IPAI was launched, it was imme­di­ately clear for us that, as a tech­nology pioneer, we wanted to actively shape the future. Here, we can bring in specific prac­tical cases from SMEs and explore and imple­ment them more quickly together. The field of AI is too large and too impor­tant to manage it alone. AI must be real­ized together.

How impor­tant is it for IPAI to have part­ners from the SME sector?

Gräter: That is essen­tial. Ulti­mately, it’s about helping compa­nies to benefit from AI. And SMEs in partic­ular benefit from joining forces in an ecosystem. I see IPAI as a shared economy plat­form for applied AI. Take the regu­la­tion of AI, for example: very few compa­nies have the capacity and exper­tise to examine how AI regu­la­tions affect their own prod­ucts and value chains. It is better to find it out in collab­o­ra­tion. An envi­ron­ment like this also attracts sought-after special­ists for SMEs which like to work openly and coop­er­a­tively. SCHUNK is the proto­type of the kind of company we want to have here: owner-managed, sustain­able and inno­v­a­tive. A company that takes the future into its own hands. And that is impor­tant for us: compa­nies should not just see us as a means of marketing their prod­ucts and services. That’s why we always ask the impor­tant ques­tion before we start working together: Are you fully committed?

Gess­mann: Yes, we are. I think AI is even in the basic mindset of engi­neering compa­nies.

What do you mean?

Gess­mann: At SCHUNK, we always want to have the best machines in our company. For example, when a new mill/turn machine arrives at our plant, everyone is happy. Our employees are really enthu­si­astic about getting their hands on it and trying things out until they have mastered the machine to perfec­tion and can use it to manu­fac­ture best-in-class prod­ucts for tool­holding and work­holding, grip­ping and automa­tion tech­nology. This mentality helps us with AI: like the mill/turn machine, we don’t manu­fac­ture it ourselves. But we want to have it in-house, under­stand it deeply, try it out and, in partic­ular, use it to increase our produc­tivity and manu­fac­ture new AI-based prod­ucts. IPAI is where the exchange and sharing of self-acquired knowl­edge takes place.

Gräter: What you describe here is a lived culture of inno­va­tion!

What does IPAI offer to its members and part­ners?

Gräter: The oppor­tu­nity to live out this culture of inno­va­tion to the fullest in a highly compe­tent network. Each company is of course respon­sible for its own AI projects, but can decide how much knowl­edge it shares with others – in work­shops, hackathons or even just waiting at the coffee machine. I have noticed that SCHUNK is one of the compa­nies that focuses partic­u­larly strongly on exchanging ideas. In prin­ciple, it’s simple: the more you put into the network, the more you benefit from it.

Gess­mann: SCHUNK has its own office and six work­sta­tions at IPAI. We work side by side with other compa­nies such as Audi, Würth and Schwarz Digits. Over the last year and a half, a trusting rela­tion­ship has devel­oped between the compa­nies, for example through joint inno­va­tion and commu­nity events. The open space concept alone, and in partic­ular the enthu­siasm and open­ness for new tech­nolo­gies at IPAI, encour­ages the exchange of ideas.

Where do you see oppor­tu­ni­ties in the use of AI?

Gess­mann: We use it to increase our customers’ produc­tivity because AI accel­er­ates and opti­mizes automa­tion processes – or makes them possible in the first place to secure busi­ness in the long term. One example is AI-supported object recog­ni­tion via camera in robot-conrolled handling appli­ca­tions: Users no longer have to spend time program­ming and teaching the robot; the system largely under­stands its tasks itself. This means that many auto­mated processes can be imple­mented for the first time ever. And others will be easier because they do not require SMEs to have special­ists with program­ming skills. This means that many more work steps can be auto­mated for many more compa­nies.

Gräter: In Germany and other coun­tries, this is a valu­able compet­i­tive factor! We are not only facing a lack of skilled workers but also workers in general. AI-supported automa­tion is an impor­tant answer to this for the industry.

Gess­mann: This also applies to internal processes. We have orga­nized our own produc­tion as a smart factory. A lot of data is gener­ated here, which we eval­uate with the help of AI and opti­mize produc­tion steps. And we have our own SCHUNK GPT, with which we are imple­menting more and more appli­ca­tions in the areas of devel­op­ment, sales, marketing, and in knowl­edge manage­ment, increasing our produc­tivity in all those areas.

Society is also skep­tical about the use of AI. How do you build trust?

Gräter: That is an impor­tant point. Because if we want to benefit from AI, we can only do so if we trust this tech­nology. This is nothing new in prin­ciple with tech­nology – you also have to trust a car or an airplane if you want to use it safely. AI is complex and a black box for many people. That is why we want it to be trans­parent and compre­hen­sible. We have now opened a visitor center for everyone in IPAI SPACES, where, for example, it is clearly shown how a neural network works: When the AI ‘considers’ whether it is seeing a zebra or an elephant – what is actu­ally happening? We explain the tech­nology and show that it’s not magic.

How do SCHUNK’s customers benefit from the company’s involve­ment in IPAI?

Gess­mann: SCHUNK always has access to the latest AI tech­nolo­gies with IPAI. Our customers benefit directly from this tech­no­log­ical progress because we make these tech­nolo­gies fully usable through our prod­ucts and services and their produc­tivity is thereby increased. At the same time, they can be sure that our AI appli­ca­tions are trust­worthy, reli­able and of high quality. And one last thing: our customers also benefit from this special inno­v­a­tive spirit and the large network from which we can benefit at IPAI.