RMIT, Siemens and Festo are to set up an Industrial Digital Innovation Hub at RMIT to promote Industry 4.0.
Festo is a Germany based provider of automation technology and, through Festo Didactic, a provider of industrial training and education equipment and programs.
The three organisations have signed a MoU to explore cooperation to “help drive workforce transformation for Industry 4.0 in the Australasian region,” and say the hub will be the cornerstone of a number of initiatives being explored under the MoU.
It will be established with a grant of industrial software grant from Siemens and will be managed out of the RMIT Advanced Manufacturing Precinct, an Industry 4.0 facility focused on digital manufacturing and design.
They say the hub will be designed to enable digital innovation at scale in a collaborative effort across different cultures, disciplines, geographical locations and industry environments, eventually linking RMIT in Australia with its Vietnam campuses.
Collaboration of unprecedented scale
The deputy vice-chancellor of RMIT’s College of Science, Engineering and Health, and vice president for digital innovation, professor Aleks Subic said the agreement represented a new model of public-private sector partnership based on collaborative systems leadership at a scale never seen before in Australia.
“It’s time to think big with Industry 4.0,” he said. “We expect as many as 10,000 RMIT students across a range of disciplines in engineering, science, technology, health and design to access some of the most advanced industrial software available over the next three years.
“It has never been more important to provide this type of industrial digital environment for the development of workforce of the future, that allows collaborative interdisciplinary teams to co-design and co-create remotely across borders and industry sectors.”
Siemens is already partnering with another university, Swinburne, on Industry 4.0. In August 2017 it announced plans to provide $135 million worth of industrial software to digitalise the university’s Factory of the Future and a year later deepened its relationship, announcing it would install its MindSphere industrial IoT operating system at the university’s Hawthorn campus.
