Nicolas Buck, the Industry 4.0 concept is developing rapidly. How important is this concept for the future of the Luxembourg economy?
“Industry 4.0 should not be viewed as an end in itself. The strategy to be adopted depends on three main considerations: What? For whom? And how? We need to define what should be developed or produced when applying this approach, specify what markets and targets this is intended for and determine the optimal production methods. We can also add the “why?”, the reason why a client chooses to work in a particular way.
Industry 4.0 is a bit of a catch-all term, but it clearly expresses the now crucial importance of connectivity and the ability to produce much more quickly in response to significant fluctuations in demand from the market, which also requires companies to be highly responsive.
Is this Industry 4.0 strategy difficult to implement?
“This depends of course on the requirements, and it is part of an effort to collect production information. With any industrial process, whatever it may be, the clients’ specifications have an essential impact on the production put in place. Over the last 40 to 50 years, all industrial firms have spent a huge amount of time trying to optimise the take-up of information received from clients and translating all of their specifications into a production environment. We need to know how to manage information waste, information that arrives late, clients that change their minds, etc.
Would you say that Luxembourg is well-positioned in terms of Industry 4.0?
“We certainly have our strengths, just like other countries. We have not necessarily been pioneers, and large countries, such as Germany or France, are no doubt more advanced with their factories of the future. But with the business federation FEDIL, the Ministry of the Economy and Luxinnovation all working together, we have made major efforts. Our role is clearly to promote existing expertise that companies can benefit from. It is then up to the businesses themselves to select the service providers that they consider to be the best fit. To some extent, we are sowing seeds.
It is clear that industrial firms will not be able to do everything by themselves.
Soon, Luxembourg will launch a Digital Innovation Hub (DIH), a one-stop shop helping industrial companies to become more competitive by using digital technologies. What value does it offer to businesses?
Europe is the driving force behind this platform, which is part of the much bigger digital single market initiative. Is it important to have this type of momentum at community level in addition to national initiatives?
What about Luxembourg? How is the country positioning itself within this environment?
Does Luxembourg know how to effectively sell itself abroad?
There have recently been some major announcements in Luxembourg, including among others Goodyear’s Mercury project, Husky’s Factory of the Future and significant investments by Kronospan, Cebi International and Circuit Foil. Does this count in Luxembourg’s favour?
What are the next major steps in the development of Industry 4.0?
“Clearly, as always, continuous learning. The human aspect is vital. We need to orient schools and universities more strongly towards preparing students for technical and technological jobs. And “technology” goes hand in hand with “scientists”. This is essential.
The human aspect is vital.
You mentioned human resources. Should we focus on attracting talents or retaining them?
“We clearly need to do both! We need to both train up talented people and encourage them to come to Luxembourg. And to attract them, we need to use good arguments. The Luxembourg Digital Skills Bridge project is an ambitious initiative. It aims to encourage businesses to anticipate their needs for skills, while promoting employee mobility in a job market that is undergoing a transformation.
Luxembourg is getting ready to welcome the headquarters of the EuroHPC joint undertaking in charge of supervising the development and deployment of a European network of high performance computers (HPC). What will be the impact of this decision taken by the European Commission last June?
When do you think the first concrete effects can be measured?
For the past year and a half, the arrival of the US giant Google in Luxembourg has been mentioned. The company has even acquired more than 30 hectares of land in the centre of the country, but has not yet officially announced its decision to set up its future data centres here. Is this strong level of interest from such a giant positive for Luxembourg’s ecosystem?
“This is first and foremost a project on a very large scale. Its sheer size is interesting. And if it succeeds, this will show any potential investor that while Luxembourg is a modestly sized country, it has the skills needed for managing such a project, which includes not just making available the infrastructures, but also everything relating to energy supply and data governance. Clearly, if we are able to welcome a Google, we can welcome anyone.
If we are able to welcome a Google, we can welcome anyone.
Are you confident about the way Industry 4.0 is going to develop in Luxembourg?
What about the human aspect? Growing digitalisation and the development of artificial intelligence are fuelling concerns that people will be replaced with machines and thousands or even more jobs will be lost. How would you assess the situation?
“The human capacity to rethink production processes is unlimited. Take a car production line: while it is true that there are far fewer or indeed sometimes no people at all involved in the initial production phases, a human presence is still essential for the assembly line.