Siemens, FFG Partner to Consolidate Machine Tool Digitalization Efforts

Siemens and Fair Friend Enterprise Co. Ltd. Taiwan (FFG) have signed a joint Memorandum of Understanding with the intention of strengthening their long-standing business relationship. The aim of the extended partnership is to consolidate the integration of the Siemens Digital Enterprise Suite across the Taiwanese business and to integrate Siemens digitalization and automation technologies into FFG’s machine tools and machine tool technologies.

To this end, Dr. Jimmy Chu, FFG Chairman, and Dr. Wolfgang Heuring, CEO of Siemens AG’s Motion Control Business Unit, signed the memorandum at EMO earlier this month. The two businesses agreed to work closely together in the future on the consolidation of the Siemens Digital Enterprise Suite and the cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) operating system MindSphere at FFG. Thanks to its open-access structure, MindSphere is said to enable machine manufacturers to use their domain expertise in developing high-performance applications for machine operators, forming the basis of new services and business models.

The intensified cooperation will also include Siemens’ Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) and Totally Integrated Automation (TIA) domains.

In previous years, Siemens and FFG have developed concepts independently of each other which combine digitalization and automation for machine tools. The Digital Enterprise portfolio from Siemens offers core elements of industrial software and automation, industrial communication systems, security and services as well as cloud-based IoT technologies. Siemens will primarily bring its expertise in machine control and automation technology to the concepts to be developed.

 “As a leading international manufacturer of machine tools and globally active business, FFG is constantly looking to meet the challenges of digitalization and to convert the business to a digital company,” says Dr. Chu. “Siemens’ global setup, with its all-encompassing and pioneering Digital Enterprise concept and its leading future-oriented technologies for Intelligent Manufacturing and the Factory of the Future, is therefore an excellent partner for FFG.”

Dr. Heuring says: “Our two companies have been working together for many years on a basis of trust and with a common theme: a passion for machine tools. Putting this collaboration on a broader footing from now on against the background of the opportunities provided by digitalization is a seminal and important step for both companies.”