Siemens is planning an extensive renewal of its manufacturing and development location in Amberg, Germany. There, the company will build an intelligent factory for its Smart Infrastructure Business by 2030. In this way, Siemens aims to meet the growing demand for high-tech electronic products and increase the flexibility of its future manufacturing operations. The company is investing around €200 million in the new building. It also plans further investments to modernize and decarbonize the location.
“This investment is a clear commitment to the location. It will also provide additional stimulus for Siemens’ growth in Germany. These plans even go beyond the investment commitments we made as part of the “Made for Germany” initiative,” said Roland Busch, President and CEO of Siemens AG. By using industrial artificial intelligence, digital twins, and state-of-the-art automation, we are enhancing competitiveness and creating jobs with a future. We’re also helping tostrengthen Germany’s status as a country with a powerful industrial sector.”
At the new factory, Siemens intends to set up self-learning, autonomous and highlyflexible manufacturing operations that are partially controlled by artificial intelligence. The company aims to make operations not only more efficient and sustainable but also more flexible, enabling it to respond faster to new requirements and developments in the market.
It is important for Siemens to bring the approximately 2,400 people employed by Smart Infrastructure at the location on board as part of the digital transformation. It also aims to safeguard jobs at the site for the future. To that end, the company is providing its people with extensive training and preparing them for the changed tasks in a digital factory.
Even in the planning phase, Siemens is already using its digital twin technology to design the new building. This technology makes it possible to simulate the entire factory—including production, machines, and logistics—in advance and across different scenarios. For this task, the company will also use its new “Digital Twin Composer," which brings the various digital twins together.
Artificial intelligence will play a particularly important role in future production: The AI will be constantly fed with real-time data to coordinate order planning, implementation, material transport and system control in the best possible way andthen optimize them on an ongoing basis. In addition, the new factory will have fullyautomated logistics, with driverless transport systems and humanoid robotics. A cleanroom for electronics production will also be an integral part of the factory.
Amberg, which has two Siemens factories and around 4,500 people, is an important production and development location for the company. Siemens Industries currently develops and manufactures switching, protection, and monitoring devices for industrial applications, as well as industrial controllers, at a plant in this southern German town, serving customers all over the world.
With this investment, Siemens is reinforcing its commitment to Germany as a business location and to the “Made for Germany” initiative. To date, 124 companies have joined this initiative. Together, they have pledged to invest a total of over €800 billion in Germany.