Technology-neutral: How Festo positions itself as a problem solver

In industry, adaptability is crucial to remain competitive and meet the changing demands of customers. Festo exemplifies such a development. Dr Ansgar Kriwet, board member for research and development at Festo, emphasises in the podcast Industry Insights that the change at Festo was significantly initiated by the customers themselves. In the past, customers came to Festo with a specific request for pneumatics. They were looking for the next best cylinder or valve, explains Kriwet.

In the meantime, the approach has fundamentally changed. "The customer comes to us with a motion task. He says, I need to package this mobile phone or I need to get this toothpaste into the tube (…), so some technical task," says the board member. The customer no longer wants to talk about a cylinder or an electric motor, but wants to clarify the question, "how do I solve my problem".

This paradigm shift has led to Festo no longer primarily selling individual products, but working closely with the customer to solve their automation problem holistically. The result is a product basket containing the components necessary to solve the problem - regardless of the specific technology. Today, Festo's customers no longer consciously buy pneumatics, but the most suitable solution for the respective problem.

Between pneumatics and electric drive technology

The range of technologies at Festo has therefore expanded significantly. While pneumatics is valued for its robustness, cost-effectiveness, and easy installation, electric drive technology offers high controllability, energy efficiency, and easy data access. However, sometimes customers have applications where they need 'something more in the middle'. 'And we develop solutions for that too,' reports Kriwet.

As an example, he mentions 'Controlled Pneumatics'. This allows pneumatic drives to be controlled so precisely that movement behaviour can be regulated, bringing the method closer to electric drive technology.

Conversely, electric drive technologies have also been simplified to enable simple point-to-point movements in the direction of pneumatics. 'Our goal is to optimally represent the entire spectrum of movement from very simple to very demanding movements for the customer,' summarises Kriwet, describing the attitude of technology neutrality.

Technology neutrality brings many advantages for customers

Festo's open approach brings decisive advantages for customers, especially when different technologies need to be combined in one machine. According to Kriwet, a typical scenario is that large-scale movements in a portal system are carried out electrically, as this is better controllable and speed-regulatable, while simple vertical movements are cost-effectively realised pneumatically.

“And it is indeed good when you have a provider who can offer both from a single source. This makes the entire selection process, but also the assembly process, the testing process, the control process much easier, because I am essentially using an ecosystem,” explains Kriwet. This saves the customer significant effort in design and commissioning.

Artificial intelligence is also part of the technology diversity

Festo's openness to technology is also evident in the use of the latest technologies such as artificial intelligence. AI is an “incredibly important tool in many areas of the company” for Festo, says Kriwet.

In the product area, Festo uses AI, for example, to monitor the wear condition of products. Kriwet explains: “Every technical product shows its wear condition externally. The question is only whether you listen and, so to speak, recognise it.”

Unplanned downtimes are reduced

By monitoring functions such as the runtime of a pneumatic cylinder, AI can analyse behaviour patterns and infer the “health status” of the product. This can drastically reduce unplanned downtimes, says Kriwet in conversation with Julia Dusold and Anja Ringel.

It becomes clear: Festo has evolved from a specialist in pneumatics to a comprehensive provider of industrial movement, aiming to operate across technologies and close to the customer.

“Technologies are not inherently good or bad; it's always about the question of how can I use them to achieve something,” says Kriwet.

This text is based on excerpts from the podcast Industry Insights (German-speaking). You can find the episode with Ansgar Kriwet among other places here and everywhere where podcasts are available. In the podcast, Kriwet also talks about the topics of 100 years of Festo and the location Germany.

The podcast episode is presented by Festo.