Festo joins the Siemens Industrial Edge Ecosystem

Siemens has announced that Festo has joined the company’s Industrial Edge Ecosystem. To kick this off, Festo is offering the Festo AX Data access app (a data-driven AI solution) on the Siemens Industrial Edge Marketplace, where industrial users can purchase numerous apps from different providers. The integrated IoT solutions based on these apps offer tools to improve productivity, flexibility and sustainability.

“We’re pleased to offer our Festo AX Industrial apps on the Siemens Industrial Edge platform as part of our partnership,” said Dr Oliver Niese, who heads Digital Business at Festo. “Users benefit from the opportunity to purchase apps from different providers in a single place, to install them and run them at the machines on the shop floor.”

Another benefit is the wide range of software components that can be integrated into production in a standardised way. IoT solutions can even be scaled across lines and factories, thus considerably reducing manual software maintenance.

“At Siemens, we want to add even more partners to the Industrial Edge Ecosystem, especially those in the field of automation,” said Rainer Brehm, CEO of Factory Automation at Siemens. “A larger selection increases flexibility for our customers, who can build individual IoT solutions from Siemens and partner modules (Industrial Edge apps and devices). We create the greatest value for our customers when we work together across company boundaries.”

Festo launched its Industrial Intelligence portfolio with the Festo AX Data Access connectivity solution, which feeds data from Festo components into Siemens Industrial Edge to supply analysis applications with data. Users can build a monitoring solution based on the data and thereby improve maintenance processes, lower their energy consumption and improve quality. Additional industrial apps from Festo are expected to be available on Siemens Industrial Edge, such as AI-based wear prediction for pneumatic drives.

Festo AX Industrial apps like AX Data Access are building blocks that can be combined with other applications from Festo, Siemens and third parties to form larger solutions. They enable production employees to independently build digital solutions for optimising productivity. The companies say the partnership allows Festo and Siemens to support their customers on the path to becoming more sustainable, more flexible and more efficient.

Image caption: Dr Oliver Niese (Festo) and Rainer Brehm (Siemens) present the partnership at Hannover Messe 2023.