How a German company is readying Chinese industry for Industry 4.0, while the UK apparently has to leave the EU, just to do trade. Odd.

Harting Technology Group is a German family company which has evolved from a post-war manufacturer of bicycles and radios to a major global manufacturer of electrical and electronic interconnection products for data, signal and power applications. It has 13 production plants and branches in 44 countries. In the 2016/17 business year, some 4,600 employees generated sales of EUR 672 million.

Harting is currently participating in a three-day delegation trip (October 22-24, 2018) to Foshan in Guangdong Province, one of the leading industrial centres in China.

The trip was organised by the German Electrical and Electronic Industry ZVEI,
partnering with the Robotation Academy Foshan, Foshan Sino-German Industrial
Services Zone and Internet Expo.

The Harting production plant in Zhuhai was also on the agenda for the visit. There, the Group manufactures primarily Han-Modular and Han B connectors.

Currently, Harting is making China's production fit for Industry 4.0.

"Smart manufacturing has ramped up quickly in China. The digitisation of processes is becoming increasingly important here as well," says Bernd Fischer, General Manager of Corporate Regional Management at Harting.

Harting's MICA (Modular Industry Computing Architecture) is well-suited for this purpose.

MICA makes it possible to store, evaluate and process data directly within application environments and can be configured with individual hardware, freely available software and associated interfaces – wholly in line with a customer’s individual requirements.

In the Robotation Academy Foshan, participants in advanced training courses will be introduced to where and how the MICA can be used in industrial environments.

"We can help manufacturing companies to monitor and visualise manufacturing processes," explains Dr Ellen McMillan, General Manager Greater China at Harting Technology Group.

In a presentation, Uwe Gräff, Managing Director of Harting Electric and Harting IT Software Development, showed in the context of smart manufacturing how the Chinese market is influencing technological development worldwide.