Artificial Intelligence is central at Machinebouw 2024

The FHI Machinebouw event took place on December 3, 2024 in Congrescentrum 1931 in 's-Hertogenbosch. 330 visitors visited the exhibition floor and the extensive seminar program.

In the large hall, Roelof Kuipers, Branch Manager Industrial Automation, opens the Machine Building event. “FHI brings the machine building sector together, looking for technical solutions,” says Roelof as he welcomes the full hall. After a short opening speech, he gives the stage to the first speaker of the day: Ralf Zoetekouw, founder of Datacation.

“After the industrial revolution, we are now facing a new revolution,” says Ralf. “The industrial revolution automated manual work. Now we are at the beginning of a new era: the automation of human thinking.” Responding to this, Ralf indicates that he sees a clear trend in the market. “Organizations are increasingly doing more with AI.”

Using a series of concrete examples, Ralf explains the broad possibilities of AI for Mechanical Engineering. He quickly links ASML, Neways, KLM Catering Services and UMC Utrecht. All these companies have, mainly through the application of language models, benefited from practical AI applications. Ralf throws a mountain of data over the room and emphasizes again and again: “Start with a solid data infrastructure”. Because for AI too, “shit in, shit out”.

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The main hall is dedicated to Artificial Intelligence. AI and hybrid intelligence are the new buzzwords. Advantech, Festo, Ixon and Euchner all emphasise the importance and possibilities of AI. In addition, attention is also paid to the EU AI Act. A component that is clearly important – and will come into effect on 2 February 2025 – for the Mechanical Engineering sector: article 4: AI literacy.

“Providers and deployers of AI systems shall take measures to ensure, to their best extent, a sufficient level of AI literacy of their staff and other persons dealing with the operation and use of AI systems on their behalf, taking into account their technical knowledge, experience, education and training and the context the AI systems are to be used in, and considering the persons or groups of persons on whom the AI systems are to be used.”[1]

Laws and regulations follow innovations and the mechanical engineering sector must also take this into account.

Machine safety

A perhaps unexpected application of AI is to curb human capriciousness. For the safety of man and machine, machine builders come up with numerous measures to make the use of their machines as safe as possible. However, the creativity of the user is limitless. Arno Meijer presents a number of examples on behalf of Euchner that show the creativity of man. Human behavior and the straightforwardness of machines are not a good combination. “A measure to curb human creativity is to continuously check whether no shortcuts are used to circumvent safety requirements. And this is exactly where AI can help,” says Arno. AI is a master at searching for deviations that are impossible or illogical. “A small deviation can indicate manipulation. And this is where AI can be of great help to us.”

Arno concludes his presentation and Roelof takes over. He invites the visitors to the exhibition floor and promises that the Bossche bollen will not be missing.

ING

The day flies by. Gert Jan Braam of ING Sector banking stands on the podium in the main hall and thanks FHI for allowing him to give the final presentation.

He underlines the large difference between the EU and the US in labor productivity since the corona pandemic. And emphasizes that prosperity growth is only possible through investment. “Europe is hopelessly behind.”

We need to speed up to keep up with China and the US, and cooperation is crucial for this. Gert Jan ends on a positive note: “We have the knowledge and we are close to the customers. These are two major advantages with clear added value.”

Gert Jan accepts the applause with a smile and hands the floor to Roelof. Inspired and with a mountain of new information, the visitors walk towards the drinks. A little more chat, a drink and a final round on the exhibition floor. It was a successful day. The Machinebouw event has once again met the high expectations.

[1] Article 4: AI literacy | EU Artificial Intelligence Act (December 4, 2024)