South Ural State University hosted a three-day 2020 Global Smart Industry Conference (GloSIC’2020). The Conference was held in cooperation with Emerson Corporation, the USA; International Measurement Confederation (IMEKO); International Research and Engineering Society of Instrument Engineers and Metrologists; and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
SUSU Rector, Doctor of Sciences (Engineering), Professor Aleksandr Shestakov spoke about the main results of the Conference and the main trends in the development of Industry 4.0 in Russia and in the world.
Industry 4.0
- Could you please remind us the back story? How did the idea of holding the Global Smart Industry Conference at SUSU come about?
- The idea came from our collaboration with Emerson Corporation. It is the ideologue of the digital industry, and the world leader in Industry 4.0. We are linked by long-term and fruitful cooperation; the Corporation has opened a plant and an engineering centre in the city of Chelyabinsk.
The digital industry is one of the three strategic directions for the development of South Ural State University. We work on various aspects: sensorics, sensor data processing and equipment condition assessment, digital twins, information security of production systems. In our university, serious research is carried out, and big-scale projects are being implemented. The Internet of Things, Digital Twin and Cyber Physical System are central concepts in Industry 4.0 that are fundamentally changing our lives. Digitalization applies to all fields of activity. We held the first Global Smart Industry Conference in 2018. This year's international conference was dedicated to the implementation of developments, digital twins, the use of machine learning, cyber physical systems, and big data analysis.
- What was the atmosphere, in which the conference was held, like? Has it aroused great interest among representatives of the global science community?
- Of course, a strong interest has been shown. The Conference brought together leading experts in digital industry from eight countries, 14 plenary and 70 section reports were delivered. The first to speak was Michael Train, President of Emerson Corporation. He shared his vision of the new horizons for digital transformation of society and industry.
The speech by Pino Tesè, the President and CEO of SMS group Inc., USA, was also interesting. He shared on digital solutions and examples of their use in the metallurgical industry.
The Rector of St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Andrei Rudskoi took an active part in the conference. He spoke about the platform created at the university, where digital twins of industrial products are designed. This is a very high level and a big step in the development of the digital industry in our country.
Professors of the world's leading universities spoke with enthusiasm about the achievements in Industry 4.0, about promising developments and practices in introducing innovations in large transnational and domestic industrial companies.
I can say that in our country GloSIC is one of the most serious conferences dedicated to the digital industry. We plan to continue holding it every two years. The conference proceedings will be submitted to IEEE Xplore, Scopus and Web of Science for indexing.
.JPG)
SUSU projects
- Introduction of digital technologies is important both for the industry and for the lives of citizens. Please, tell us about the digital twin of Chelyabinsk – a big-scale project being implemented by SUSU.
- The digital twin of Chelyabinsk will allow to see what is happening in various systems of the city in real time. For example, in the heat supply system. The digital model and sensors installed will make it possible to receive data, assess the state and simulate the entire heat supply system of the city, understand how efficiently it works, what solutions are needed, and what results a particular action will lead to.
Or, for example, a traffic monitoring system. Installation of video cameras (primarily at intersections) and analysis of the information received will increase the traffic capacity for city streets and even allow to estimate the amount of emissions of harmful substances from car engines. Such technologies will make the life of Chelyabinsk residents safer and more comfortable.
- GloSIC’2020 is a multifunctional platform, which is also used for demonstration of results. What projects of SUSU, announced two years ago at the conference, have already been implemented?
- It is a project for the assessment of the condition of crystallizers (special facilities in the continuous casting), which has been carried out jointly with SMS group. It is implemented using neural network technologies – one of the methods of artificial intelligence. We have obtained good results here. The probability for a correct determination of the internal state of the crystallizer has been significantly increased (up to 99 percent).
- Is it about saving a lot of money?
- In practice, a single steel breakout threatens a steel-casting works with an average loss of € 250,000. SMS group, one of the world's leading manufacturers of steel equipment, has developed a cyber physical system to prevent breakouts. And for the SMS group, the SUSU specialists developed an artificial neural network that reduces the number of this system’s false alarms by many times.
- Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works is the leader in the Russian industry in terms of the scale of the use of information technologies. SUSU also has long-standing and promising cooperation with this company...
- A lot of our developments have been implemented. This year we are completing another big-scale project related to the assessment of the condition of equipment in its slitting lines shop based on neural network technologies. And the prospects are good. We decided to create a joint venture that will conduct engineering developments and deal with the issues of their implementation at Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works. We have projects for future development with the use of artificial intelligence. There are many iron and steel works plants in our region. I think that we will replicate the experience we are gaining with Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works at enterprises operating on the global market. This will make it possible to raise the level of production at enterprises not only in the Chelyabinsk Region, but also in the Big Urals region.
.jpg)
Main trends
- And what did our foreign colleagues surprise with?
- It’s not really that our foreign colleagues surprised us...They shared on the trends in the development of the digital industry. Emerson is the world's leading corporation in measurement equipment. It created automated control systems for technological production. And now the corporation has changed the business paradigm due to the fact that it has become closely involved in the digital industry. It has moved from sensors and control systems to providing services to improve production efficiency. This is a very bold move. And we see that, having changed the paradigm, the corporation is successfully working in a new direction.
- What are the main trends in the digital transformation of society and industry?
- Today, social development is impossible without digitalization. It enters into all spheres of our life. In the world, and in particular in Russia, the first stores without sellers are already beginning to emerge. Everything is automated there, self-service is offered for people. In the society, some professions replace others. Specialists in the digital industry are becoming more and more in demand. Artificial intelligence methods are included in solving problems associated with certain preferences. We can already observe this in our real everyday life. For example, if you are interested in a certain topic, news on this topic comes to your gadget. This is the digital technology, artificial intelligence, which selects it for you.
As for the industry, the digitalization allows to increase production efficiency in terms of energy saving, ensures equipment reliability and efficiency, and reduces the risk of accidents. And the digitalization also helps protect information. It is no secret that the problem of industrial espionage is urgent, there is sabotage associated with the disruption of systems. We need to defend against cyber attacks in production, and there is such a technical possibility. Today information security is one of the main elements of the digital industry.
- The importance of information security cannot be overestimated. Is scientific thought actively working in this direction?
- Scientific thought is working actively and productively in this direction. We had a meeting with Kaspersky not so long ago. We agreed with Eugene that a Kaspersky Centre will be founded at South Ural State University. This will allow, on the one hand, to deal with issues of information security on a bigger scale, and on the other hand, to organize scientists of our university and involve the world leader in information security in solving problems.
The future of professions
- Which new professions will emerge?
- If big data is used in production, professions related to information collection and analysing will be emerging. The number of sensors used in production can increase massively. The incoming information needs to be collected and analysed. These are specific information technologies. Obviously, this field will be developing. We also see prospects in the analytics with the use of big data and artificial intelligence technologies. I cannot say that in time robots will replace lawyers. But there is no doubts that lawyers will have very nice electronic assistants, which will improve the efficiency of their work.
- But some professions will indeed disappear. Those who criticize the digitalization, the sceptics, are not really happy about it…
- Some professions will certainly disappear. But that’s just the way it has been happening over the course of the human history. There will be emerging more and more professions related to automation, digitalization, and analytics. We now have robots that can clean apartment. It would be nice if there are less of the low-paid jobs. I also think that there will be less personnel responsible for security in various facilities and residential complexes. The information transmitted through sensors will reduce the number of employees, who are directly involved in security of various facilities today.
.jpg)
Digital transformations
- It is very important to timely implement advanced technologies into production, and to promptly respond to the market trends. Does Russia succeed in this?
- Russia is less open to innovations as compared to Israel or the USA, for instance. We are slower to implement them in big scale. However, Russia has a good potential. Today there are many worthy developments in the Russian Federation. We need to implement them more actively.
- What are the main results of GloSIC’2020 global forum?
- I believe there are two main results. First is that we’ve seen the level of the digital industry of today. New tasks have been presented, as well as the approaches to solve them. And second is that we’ve got acquainted with the new generation of researchers, with whom it becomes possible to solve those tasks. Young scientists are very well familiar with information technologies. But to work on the issues of digital industry more profoundly, a strong fundamental base in mathematics, physics and computer sciences is required. South Ural State University has both the talented young researchers and the fundamental science.
All things digital is a very rapidly changing field of development. It’s difficult to track these changes for senior citizens. Young people now practically live on the Internet: they feel at home with gadgets and information systems. So, it’s only natural to assign the solving of the digitalization tasks to young people. That’s their realm and their strength. And our task is to provide them with fundamental knowledge. That’s when they become highly qualified specialists who can yield worthy results.
- How much time, do you think, would be required for senior citizens to stop repelling the digital transformation?
- If we’re talking about the improvement of services, one important condition is required to prevent this repelling. Everything must be simple for people using the results of the digital transformation. All big projects in the social sphere are aimed at this. I know for a fact that much more changes are happening than we expect. And the speed of these changes is increasing.
- Is that good?
- On one hand, it is good. And on the other hand, this is a challenge for the higher school. South Ural State University rises to challenges and tries to respond to them adequately.