CHEMNITZ, Germany – In a small corner of a vast thyssenkrupp factory in this industrial town, an engineer was talking to a machine. “From the begi

How AI is helping Siemens and thyssenkrupp bridge skilling gaps in manufacturing - Source EMEA

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2024-10-24 19:00:06

CHEMNITZ, Germany – In a small corner of a vast thyssenkrupp factory in this industrial town, an engineer was talking to a machine.

“From the beginning I was only speaking to it in English, but today I discovered it speaks German quite well,” said Marcus Schoenherr, one of the thyssenkrupp engineers using the Siemens Industrial Copilot to program and test this machine. The Industrial Copilot is a generative AI-powered assistant that was developed through a collaboration between Siemens and Microsoft. Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service powers the copilot’s capabilities.

“When I start with the copilot I usually begin with a welcome and introduce myself,” Schoenherr said. “But I wondered if it would understand the typical northern German word ‘Moin’ which means good morning, among other things. And then suddenly the copilot answered in German.” Schoenherr then spent the rest of that session interacting with the machine using his native language.

This project at thyssenkrupp is part of an effort to use the power of AI to compensate for a shortage of skilled workers in manufacturing in Germany, Europe and many other countries, including the United States.