"We were very pleased, but not surprised, by the large quantity and high quality of applications," says Till Hertwig, Industry Executive Manufacturing at Microsoft Germany. "We know the strengths of the industry and its great capacity for innovation. Our Microsoft Intelligent Manufacturing Award recognizes the best ideas and is a gauge of the latest and most innovative developments in the manufacturing industry." The Microsoft Intelligent Manufacturing Award recognizes thought leaders whose ideas and solutions are shaping the future of the industry. This was again demonstrated by the high standard of the solutions provided by this year's award winners.

Dürr Systems AG: Overall victory with AI for wear and anomaly detection

The overall winner was Dürr Systems AG with its use of artificial intelligence in industrial production plants. With its DXQanalyze solution, production data can be evaluated at both machine and factory level to identify anomalies and establish correlations across numerous production steps. This can prevent machine downtime and reduce waste.

Haselmeier™ A medmix Brand with plus10: Operational Shopfloor Assistance for Medical Production

The company Haselmeier™ A medmix Brand, together with the Fraunhofer technology spinoff plus10, won the award in the category "Innovate! " - with their continuously learning optimization control loops for automated production plants in the medical technology or pharmaceutical industry. The Shannon® software tool suggests the appropriate advice and solutions via smartphone after real-time analyses of malfunctions. They are then evaluated by a scoring process and reintroduced into the loop by machine learning, making the system ever smarter.

WITTENSTEIN SE with XITASO GmbH: Standardized digital twin

The winner of the category "Scale! " is WITTENSTEIN SE with its partner XITASO GmbH for its application of the Asset Administration Shell as a standardized digital twin. The system enables automated parameterization of digital services in common platforms and gateways for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) because it is based on open standards and standardized interfaces. In this way, the standardized digital twin can be interoperably integrated into production plants worldwide and massively simplifies information procurement in manufacturing.

Robert Bosch GmbH: Digital Twin for Integrated Asset Performance Management

A digital twin also made the running in the "Add Value!" category: Robert Bosch GmbH lets machines communicate independently via its Integrated Asset Performance Management (IAPM): Instead of just continuing to run until failures occur, the machines send timely emergency signals to personnel when certain error symptoms occur. The new solution runs on Microsoft Azure and simplifies complex automation projects by collecting machine-generated data and helping customers run their production environment in a cost- or efficiency-optimized way.

BMW Group: Edge Ecosystem integrates any end devices

The automobile manufacturer BMW Group won the award in the category "Envision!": With its BMW Group Edge Ecosystem, any end device can be converted into a compatible edge device. Thanks to the so-called "zero-touch installation", they can be provisioned fully automatically. The BMW Group Edge Ecosystem thus reduces the effort required to manage thousands of devices and enables the simple, worldwide rollout of updates and innovations.

Wienerberger AG and SAS: Automated reduction of energy consumption and emissions

Wienerberger AG and SAS are the winners of the "Sustainability!" category, which was awarded for the first time this year. The international company headquartered in Vienna and its partner have developed a process optimization for the production of bricks in which a data-based model compensates for the large fluctuations that occur during the processing of the natural raw material. Wienerberger is relying on the SAS Viya platform in Azure to deploy the data analytics solution as quickly and in as many plants as possible.

For an overview of all award winners, finalists, and the jury of leading business and academic experts, visit www.MIMAwinners2021.com .