Festo invests in artificial intelligence

By signing the contract with Resolto Informatik GmbH on 17 April 2018, Festo will take a further important step towards implementation of the smart factory.

 "We’ve been able to gain a leading company in the field of artificial intelligence for industry applications with Resolto", exclaims Dr Frank Melzer, Member of the Management Board Product and Technology Management at Festo. Founded in 2003, the information technology company offers solutions including high-performance artificial intelligence for real-time applications in industrial companies. Data are interpreted already in the field, and in close proximity to the machines. This makes it possible to save energy, shorten cycle times and above all to decrease the number of machine failures and minimise production scrap rates. In all industry segments – whether pharmaceuticals, food, energy or the automotive industry – standstills result in lost time and high costs. Artificial intelligence helps to reduce this.

"Festo’s philosophy of continuously being on the lookout for new innovations suits usvery well",emphasises Tanja Krüger, managing Director of Resolto Informatik GmbH."Furthermore, in making this decision it was important for me that we’ll be able tocontinue serving our existing customers as usual in the future. Our entire range ofproducts and services will still be available to them in an unrestricted manner", assures Tanja Krüger.

Resolto remains an independent company

After the takeover, Resolto will remain an independent company under the umbrella of the Festo group. Resolto will serve its customer base as in the past, will continue to develop itself and would like to expand its leading position in the field of artificial intelligences in industry-relatedapplications. "We take our own and Resolto’s customersvery seriously, for which reason we’ll provide Resolto with the best possible support onits way to further success. We give creative minds, data analysts and data scientists the freedom they need to develop specific, innovative and therefore smart solutions for the machinery manufacturing market", says Dr Frank Melzer.

Further development of Festo’s product portfolio

In addition to other products, the Prognos software solution is interesting for Festo. It knows when the system is in good working order and detects each and every anomaly by means of real-time analysis of sensor data collected from the systems. "Prognos delivers accurate prognoses at an early stage, generates diagnoses and recommends action. The system’s knowledge base grows continuously thanks to uninterrupted data collection. This permits more efficient production", says Tanja Krüger in describing the added value provided by the software. "The issue of analytics and artificial intelligence will have a tremendous influence on our product portfolio, for example due to the fact that it will be possible to integrate artificial intelligence algorithms into the cloud and directly into Festo’s components", adds Dr Frank Melzer.