Did you know that you wanted to be involved in robotics from an early age?
Absolutely not. I was very interested in mathematics all the way through grammar school in Austria but had no specific technical focus. And even when I was applying to university, I still didn’t fully know what direction I wanted to take, although I did know by then that I’d like to do something technical. At Johannes Kepler University in Linz, they had a highly regarded mechatronics program, and it was flexible enough that I didn’t need to fully commit to my major specialisation until a couple of years into it. This is where I started to get more immersed in robotics - my specialisations were about vibrations in robotics systems – e.g, control theory, and this shaped my diploma thesis as well. After receiving my master’s degree, I then completed a second master’s in Legal and Business Aspects in Technics.

And what was the journey from there to LCM?
I actually started working with LCM while I was finishing my diploma thesis. Initially on a part-time basis while I was still at university, but then progressing to full-time once I had graduated. My first roles at LCM involved software development but I eventually came back to robotics which I by now realised was my main passion. I’m very glad to have had the software exposure though as it means I understand how simulation tools work and very importantly what their limits are.

What does LCM do?
LCM is where science meets industry. We transform the findings of research projects into practical applications for the benefit of our clients. To do this we need to offer our know-how from the first idea through to product realization. We believe that this combination of business focused project management and sound basic research offers our customers the best of both worlds. We have a range of competencies that includes my area of mechanics and control. And from each competency we have a range of services that we provide to our clients that come from a wide range of industry sectors such as steel production which is long established in Linz.

What sort of challenges are you seeing when it comes to agile production?
SMEs lack money and time, and of this the most critical piece is time. There’s a lot of funding available in Austria for transformation but smaller companies are so immersed in their day-to-day activities that they don’t have the time to think about how to change their production processes. We also come across a lot of family-run manufacturers that like to keep doing things the way they’ve always done them and until there is generational change within the company, there’s very little chance to introduce meaningful changes to the way they work.

What do you do to overcome these barriers?
We focus on the technical challenge. Making manufacturers understand that they can’t simply just buy a cobot, that they need a systems integrator to implement a working solution, one that will take care of things like safety and cybersecurity. I think the SMEs appreciate our honesty here, but sometimes despite everything that we do, a small manufacturer might decide to continue with the same manual production methods they’ve been using for decades. Unfortunately, you can’t win them all.

One of our tasks in DIH² was to fund 26 Transfer Technology Experiments (TTEs) to support our goal to advance factories through robotics. You oversaw two TTEs in Austria – FlexMill and Robosonic. Can you give us an overview of each please.
FlexMill brought together Ro-Ra Aviation Systems and TCM Systems that already had an existing working relationship. Ro-Ra is a leading specialist in aerospace rod design, while technology provider TCM has expertise in cutting edge technology and automation engineering. FlexMill was about creating a solution whereby the charge life of tools in the production facility could be monitored remotely and then replacement tools could be delivered to the machinist on the shop floor on a just-in-time basis, thus eliminating gaps in production. Meanwhile, Robosonic was a collaboration between Huber Kunstoffverarbeitung located in southern Germany and Rowa Automation based in Upper Austria. Huber is a plastics manufacturer that supplies to customers in the electrical, automotive, plant engineering, medical technology, and agricultural sectors. They pride themselves on being able to respond quickly to urgent customer requests, but the nature of their production set-up means that there are many manual procedures and a low degree of automation in the manufacturing facility. Machine set-up time and the manual post-processing of parts are particular bottlenecks. Rowa Automation is a technology provider that develops automation solutions for SMEs. For the Robosonic project, Rowa created FiWare-based software solutions that reduced the set-up time of various production machines by allowing simple information to be accessed using QR codes.

Was it the same process used in bringing them both to life?
No, the processes were more or less 180 degrees apart. FlexMill was driven by the manufacturer Ro-Ra who had a clearly developed set of plans for their production and the idea behind the FlexMill solution was essentially already on their roadmap. They then worked with their tool supplier TCM in crafting the proposal for funding and we obviously assisted them with that. Ro-Ra was totally vested in the entire process all the way through – they provided high-level manpower, they studied FiWare, they asked in-depth questions on how to solve technical issues. They had a clear vision for the solution and for me this significantly improved the overall chance of success.
On the other hand, the idea behind Robosonic came from the technology provider. We already had a relationship with Rowa Automation so we briefed them on the open call to see if it might be of interest. Huber was a long-standing customer of Rowa and when we performed the digitization audit of the factory it was quite obvious that there was an opportunity to automate many parts of the manufacturing process that could provide benefits to the SME.

And what’s the future for them?
With FlexMill, the result for Ro-Ra is that they have a faster, automated, and more efficient process, while TCM has a new product to add to their portfolio that they are already offering to other customers. And for LCM it’s also been beneficial as we’re now very much involved with Ro-Ra’s development roadmap, and we see a lot of opportunity for us going forward. Coming out of Robosonic, Huber can integrate new products more quickly through direct program exchange between the digital twin and the industrial robot, but the really exciting result here is that Rowa Automation now has a standardised modular robot cell product called MicBotX. The MicBotX cell is flexible and can be used across a wide range of solutions with different processing technologies, such as machine loading, assembly, milling and cutting, and there is the possibility to combine several platforms enabling even complex process to be automated.

That sounds very promising.
Very much so. Prior to Robosonic, Rowa was a pure robotic programmer. They had some large customers, but the role was one of system integration. Now they have a robotic cell product to sell so it’s had a hugely positive impact on their business.

As you know we’ve been working to create the DIH² Network which will continue our work, but as we approach the end of the Horizon2020 project life, what will you personally be taking away from what we’ve done?
Funnily enough I talked recently about this at the Austrian Robotics Workshop. At a technical level we learned a lot, particularly in terms of FiWare. One of my colleagues, Martin Trinkl served as Technologist in Residence (TiR) for a number of TTEs and from that experience we have started using FiWare in other projects that we are involved with. Outside of the technical learnings, we’ve been able to see how other DIHs in other parts of Europe operate and how they fund themselves. A particular highlight for me was getting a lab tour at NCR in Slovakia when we visited them. And then we’ve also had the opportunity to learn more general business practices such as brand building and start-up acceleration. So, from both a personal level and from the LCM perspective it has been a great experience.

Any final thoughts that you’d like to share?
AI is a huge topic and policy is being driven top-down such that policy is set at a European level and that’s then driven down to a regional and national level. So as a result, there is a lot of funding available for AI. This is great, but as I said at the beginning, my passion is robotics and I hope that while everyone is focused on AI that we don’t neglect robotics and we absolutely must not ignore the laws of physics. Those are immovable.