MES and Execution Systems

• MES executes production; it is not an ERP, APS, WMS, SCADA, Historian, or CMMS
• MES maturity progresses from basic execution to control and quality, then to a fully closed AI loop
• Rockwell Automation: 93% of manufacturers have MES, only 28% run it enterprise wide, 23% fully integrated
• A completed production run with a failed ERP confirmation leaves inventory and planning on stale data
• Plex MES favors cloud native connectivity; AVEVA MES favors a broader SCADA and Historian ecosystem
• OT/IT convergence, anchored by platforms like Opcenter, is becoming the real foundation for transformation
• Aberdeen Group: 59% of manufacturers need extra design iterations that earlier PLM/FMEA integration would prevent

‍

Industrial AI and Data

• 85% of manufacturers remain stuck in AI pilots, with just 15% describing adoption as extensive
• Parsec survey of 1,200 leaders: 72% adopted AI, only 10% at scale, 45% cite internal skills gaps
• Proven AI value: 30 to 50% less downtime, GE Appliances saving $1.5 to 2 million per 1% quality gain
• Bitkom survey of 555 German manufacturers: AI leads investment plans at 38%, ahead of edge computing at 37%
• Cisco: 96% expect AI workloads to strain their network, with connectivity the top infrastructure ask
• The Industrial AI bottleneck is shifting from connectivity to meaning, which is where knowledge graphs come in
• SAP's Autonomous Supply Chain agent caught a 185% resource overload before it reached production

‍

Digital Twins

• Siemens' Meet at the Machine initiative can cut machine ramp up time by up to 50%
• PIA Automation's Tecnomatix and SIMATIC stack connects design through commissioning into one digital twin
• At the Siemens booth, NX CAM programming was validated in a CNC Digital Twin before running on a live machine
• Shipbuilders are converging on digital twins, with Hanwha Ocean's AI already assisting 67% of indoor welding
• Mismatched revisions between an AR model and the real machine show AR cannot fix bad configuration management

‍

Workforce and Skills

• Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute: 2.6 million Baby Boomers retiring, up to 2.1 million jobs unfilled by 2030
• AI copilots from partnerships like Google Cloud and Honeywell aim to preserve that retiring tribal knowledge
• IFS Resolve aims to put 20 years of technician expertise in front of every engineer for faster fault fixes
• Declining plastics engineering enrollment threatens a growing, high paying advanced manufacturing field
• Eli Lilly named a Director of Advanced MES to lead agentic AI efforts; McKinsey is hiring a Physical AI Specialist
• A 1,000 executive survey found talent and infrastructure account for 46% of manufacturing footprint decisions

‍

Company Case Studies

• Apollo Tyres and AWS cut startup rework by 26% and sped stabilization by 40% with closed loop process control
• Vorwerk used Siemens Insights Hub to unify siloed systems and improve output pieces per hour
• Siemens and P&G's AI quality inspection cuts scrap 10 to 20% and deploys 5 to 10 times faster
• Mahindra and AWS built an Industrial Data Fabric that cut paint shop repair time by 20%
• US defense manufacturing is drawing over $34 billion in commitments plus $5 billion from the US Navy
• The UAE's Factory Forward program has reached over 700 manufacturers, backed by AED 7 billion in financing
• Siemens and Xometry's May 2026 partnership connects design, sourcing, and pricing for additive manufacturing

‍

Events

• AMT at IMTS 2026: automation demand is running at roughly 4 times 2018 levels against 500,000 open jobs
• Under "Achieve the Impossible," IMTS 2026's real constraint was framed as power and people, not machines
• FANUC, Mitsubishi, and Yaskawa each pitched open, multi vendor ecosystems, with Boston Dynamics' Spot already at work
• One IMTS campaign built around shared knowledge stood out against APT Manufacturing Solutions' student training line
• At AMB 2026, Siemens committed to making its entire machine tool portfolio Cyber Resilience Act ready
• At SEMICON Taiwan 2026, Siemens said it supports 70% of Taiwan's major semiconductor chipmakers
• Siemens will bring a closed loop Industrial AI Vision ecosystem to VISION 2026 in Stuttgart this October

‍

Thanks to Lepirat Prince NDINGA NGASSAKI, Anup Karumanchi, Jan Burian, Vijay Kummari, Keerthivasan Rajendran, Metin Kaplan, Alex Allison, Joydeep D., Max Wright, Víctor Martínez, Jeff Winter, Andreas Heine, Walker Reynolds, Melvi Pais, Hasan Shojaei, Mark Hindsbo, David Morley, Roland Laucher, Jeff Hengehold, Clairy Chow, Brion Carroll, Morgan Davis, Maggie Slowik, Don Hardin, Limarie (Lima) N., Ani Kelkar, Daniel Kuepper, Sudhir Shankarappa, Ralf M. Wagner, Dr. Matthias Loskyll, Christian Zillner, Kiran J., Robert Little, Mahmood Abdulla, Karsten Heuser, Michael Finocchiaro, Gwenaelle Huet, Dimitrios Spiliopoulos, Sandra Anderstedt, Melissa Martin, Achim Peltz, Christine Herbst-Kubitz, and Claus Romanowsky for contributing insights to this edition.

Find the full list of posts and voices for this edition: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/best-linkedin-cw-37-38-smart-manufacturing-industrial-thomas-allgeyer-ahdve/