Feinguss Blank is planning to demonstrate "the smart kind of development" at Industrial Supply 2018 (Hall 3, Stand J28). At the center of the process are digital twins: After the company from Riedlinger receives the digital construction data for a product, it produces a virtual twin to test the feasibility of the product, followed by solidification, load and other simulations in order to improve the future component and the processes before it is manufactured. With this, Blank is available as an Industrie 4.0 partner for machine and plant engineering, energy and medical technology, and other industrial sectors. The precision casting specialist is increasingly backing additive manufacturing processes "to create marketable production solutions more quickly."

"The industrial subcontracting sector has changed enormously in recent years. Subcontractors are now providers of solutions, not just products," says Olaf Daebler, Global Director of Industrial Supply with the HANNOVER MESSE team. "With the latest advances in digitalization and Industrie 4.0, there are major opportunities to integrate and rearrange collaboration as well as development and production Thanks to their immense capacity for innovation, subcontractors are no longer mere suppliers of parts, they are development partners at eye level."

Visitors to Industrial Supply can experience what that means at the group pavilion "Lightweight Construction from Baden-Württemberg" (Hall 5, D46). With the headline "live mass customization" visitors can see a fully digitalized process chain which drastically shortens development time and time-to-market. The companies Rosswag Engineering, INTEC International, Cassini Systems Europe GmbH, TECOSIM Technische Simulation GmbH, Altair Engineering GmbH, and fabrikado GmbH are partners in the project. The demonstration uses an additive-manufactured kick sled from the Paralympic biathlon: First, the person is weighed, and this number is entered into a PLM system which also knows the CAD data of the sled. Using simulations, the structure of the seat is adjusted and optimized to the weight of the athlete. This not only creates an improved product but reduces the use of materials. The optimized CAD data is relayed via the PLM system to an online platform that automatically obtains price and delivery time offers from suppliers.

The subcontracting industry is currently undergoing rapid changes which are driven by digitalization and product customization products. "Customers expect solutions for increasingly complex processes – at the lowest cost and highest quality, perfectly integrated into the value chain, permanently available online, with constantly optimized supply chain management and partnership ability in development," says Olaf Daebler.

For plastics specialist Pöppelmann (Hall 5, Stand B18) integrated industry is already part of the daily routine: CAD data is exchanged in real-time between customers and construction engineers via an FTP server. Pöppelmann’s palette as a development partner ranges from virtual product development and optimization with the 3D CAD software CATIA V5, structure calculations with FEM, fill analysis, 3D simulations and DMU visualization to tool construction and high-end series production.