Siemens – Merck and Siemens enter Strategic Partnership on Digital Transformation Technology

EMR Analysis

More information on Siemens: See full profile on EMR Executive Services

More information on Dr. Roland Busch (President and Chief Executive Officer, Siemens AG): See full profile on EMR Executive Services

More information on Siemens Digital Industries (DI): See full profile on EMR Executive Services + https://new.siemens.com/global/en/company/about/businesses/digital-industries.html + Siemens DI is an innovation leader in automation and digitalization. Closely collaborating with partners and customers, DI drives the digital transformation in the process and discrete industries. With its Digital Enterprise portfolio, DI provides companies of all sizes with an end-to-end set of products, solutions and services to integrate and digitalize the entire value chain. Optimized for the specific needs of each industry, DI’s unique portfolio supports customers to achieve greater productivity and flexibility. DI is constantly adding innovations to its portfolio to integrate cutting-edge future technologies. Siemens Digital Industries has its global headquarters in Nuremberg, Germany, and has around 72,000 employees internationally.

More information on Cedrik Neike (Member of the Managing Board and Chief Executive Officer, Siemens Digital Industries (DI), Siemens AG): See full profile on EMR Executive Services

More information on Xcelerator by Siemens: https://www.sw.siemens.com/en-US/digital-transformation/ + Xcelerator provides the engineering and manufacturing software, services and application development platform to blur the boundaries between industry domains. Companies can use this technology today to build the products of tomorrow. Turn complexity into your competitive advantage with Xcelerator.

Siemens Xcelerator consists of three pillars:

• Portfolio: A curated, modular portfolio of IOT-enabled hardware and software based on standard application programming interfaces, facilitating the integration of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT).
• Ecosystem: A growing ecosystem of partners.
• Marketplace: Interactions and transactions among customers, partners and developers.

More information on Merck: https://www.merckgroup.com/en + Our passion for science and technology is what drives our around 63,000 employees across 65 countries to find solutions to some of today’s toughest challenges and create more sustainable ways to live.

We are here for people at every step, helping create, improve and prolong life. We deliver personalized treatments for serious diseases and enable people to achieve their dream of becoming parents. We empower the scientific community. Our tools, services, and digital platform make research simpler, more exact, and help to deliver breakthroughs more quickly. We provide progressive treatment solutions that help improve access to health thanks to the accuracy of our tests and the reliability of our medicine. As a company, we are at the forefront of digital living. Our science sits inside technologies that change the way we access, store, process, and display information. Our innovative technology drives human progress and opens new possibilities to transform life on Earth as we know it.

Thanks to the constant curiosity of our employees, we are making discoveries that can change the landscape of entire industries. For more than 350 years, we’ve been pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, and we’ll continue to do so in the years to come.

In 2023, Merck generated sales of € 21 billion in 65 countries.

The founding family remains the majority owner of the publicly listed company. Merck holds the global rights to the Merck name and brand. The only exceptions are the United States and Canada, where the business sectors of Merck operate as MilliporeSigma in life science, EMD Serono in healthcare, and EMD Electronics in electronics.

More information on Belén Garijo (Chair of the Executive Board and Chief Executive Officer, Merck): https://www.merckgroup.com/en/company/management/executive-board/belen-garijo.html + https://www.linkedin.com/in/bel%C3%A9n-garijo/ 

More information on Kai Beckmann (Member of the Executive Board and Chief Executive Officer Electronics, Merck): https://www.merckgroup.com/en/company/management/executive-board/belen-garijo.html + https://www.linkedin.com/in/kai-beckmann/?locale=de_DE 

EMR Additional Notes:

• MoU (Memorandum of Understanding):
  • A memorandum of understanding is a type of agreement between two or more parties. It expresses a convergence of will between the parties, indicating an intended common line of action.
  • Starting point of negotiations between multiple parties to signal the intent of doing business or coming to an agreement. It simplifies a legal contract by establishing the key objectives and goals.
  • A MOU is not a legally binding document. It is a statement of serious intent – agreed voluntarily by equal partners – of the commitment, resources, and other considerations that each of the parties will bring. It has moral force, but does not create legal obligations.

• Industrial Automation:
  • Industrial automation is the use of technologies such as computer software and robotics to control machinery and processes which replace human beings in performing specific functions. The functions are primarily centered on manufacturing, quality control and material handling processes.
    • Fixed Automation:
      • Fixed automation systems are utilized in high volume production settings that have dedicated equipment. The equipment has fixed operation sets and is designed to perform efficiently with the operation sets. This type of automation is mainly used in discrete mass production and continuous flow systems like paint shops, distillation processes, transfer lines and conveyors. All these processes rely on mechanized machinery to perform their fixed and repetitive operations to achieve high production volumes.
    • Programmable Automation:
      • Programmable automation systems facilitate changeable operation sequences and machine configuration using electronic controls. With programmable automation, non-trivial programming efforts are required to reprogram sequence and machine operations. Since production processes are not changed often, programmable automation systems tend to be less expensive in the long run. This type of system is mainly used in low job variety and medium-to-high product volume settings. It may also be used in mass production settings like paper mills and steel rolling mills.
    • Flexible Automation:
      • Flexible automation systems are utilized in computer-controlled flexible manufacturing systems. Human operators enter high-level commands in the form of computer codes that identify products and their location in the system’s sequence to trigger automatic lower-level changes. Every production machine receives instructions from a human-operated computer. The instructions trigger the loading and unloading of necessary tools before carrying out their computer-instructed processes. Once processing is completed, the end products are transferred to the next machine automatically. Flexible industrial automation is used in batch processes and job shops with high product varieties and low-to-medium job volumes.
    • Integrated Automation:
      • Integrated industrial automation involves the total automation of manufacturing plants where all processes function under digital information processing coordination and computer control. It comprises technologies like:
        • Computer-aided process planning
        • Computer-supported design and manufacturing
        • Flexible machine systems
        • Computer numerical control machine tools
        • Automated material handling systems, like robots
        • Automatic storage and retrieval systems
        • Computerized production and scheduling control
        • Automated conveyors and cranes
      • Additionally, an integrated automation system can integrate a business system via a common database. That is, it supports the full integration of management operations and processes using communication and information technologies. Such technologies are utilized in computer integrated manufacturing and advanced process automation systems.
• Process Automation / Manufacturing:
  • Process automation is defined as the use of software and technologies to automate business processes and functions in order to accomplish defined organizational goals, such as producing a product, hiring and onboarding an employee, or providing customer service.
  • Process manufacturing utilizes chemical, physical and compositional changes to convert raw material or feedstock into a product. Process manufacturing includes industries such as cement and glass, chemicals, electric power generation, food and beverage, life sciences, metals and mining, oil and gas, pulp and paper, refining, and water and wastewater. Process manufacturing includes both continuous and batch processes.
• Discrete Automation / Manufacturing:
  • Discrete automation is the production of parts that are of a quantifiable nature. That may include cell phones, soda bottles, automobiles, airplanes, toys, etc. As you know, an automobile contains many, many parts. The parts required for an automobile are also quantifiable in nature.
  • Discrete manufacturing processes include the production of individual parts as well as their assembly into a final product. Discrete manufacturing examples include automobiles, appliances, and consumer electronics.
• Hybrid Automation / Manufacturing:
  • The Hybrid Automation Method follows two guiding principles: Implementing robust automation solutions that are easy and affordable for organisations to maintain. Realising process efficiency rapidly by reducing project overheads and time-to-value.
  • Hybrid manufacturing is a combination of additive manufacturing (AM) and subtractive manufacturing within the same machine.
• Additive Manufacturing (AM):
  • Additive manufacturing is the process of creating an object by building it one layer at a time. It is the opposite of subtractive manufacturing, in which an object is created by cutting away at a solid block of material until the final product is complete.
  • Operators across a variety of different manufacturing industries utilize additive manufacturing in various ways. For instance: Medical device manufacturers use 3D printing to develop high variance products such as dental implants.
  • The term “additive manufacturing” refers to the creation of objects by “adding” material. Therefore, 3D printing is a form of additive manufacturing. When an object is created by adding material — as opposed to removing material — it’s considered additive manufacturing.
• Smart Manufacturing (SM):
  • Technology-driven approach that utilizes Internet-connected machinery to monitor the production process. The goal of SM is to identify opportunities for automating operations and use data analytics to improve manufacturing performance.
  • An example of what the cloud can do for smart manufacturing is the Volkswagen Industrial Cloud, which combines all data from 122 Volkswagen Group facilities and processes it in real time to make improvements.

• Software vs. Hardware vs. Firmware: 
  • Hardware is physical: It’s “real,” sometimes breaks, and eventually wears out.
    • Since hardware is part of the “real” world, it all eventually wears out. Being a physical thing, it’s also possible to break it, drown it, overheat it, and otherwise expose it to the elements.
    • Here are some examples of hardware:
      • Smartphone
      • Tablet
      • Laptop
      • Desktop computer
      • Printer
      • Flash drive
      • Router
  • Software is virtual: It can be copied, changed, and destroyed.
    • Software is everything about your computer that isn’t hardware.
    • Here are some examples of software:
      • Operating systems like Windows 11 or iOS
      • Web browsers
      • Antivirus tools
      • Adobe Photoshop
      • Mobile apps
  • Firmware is virtual: It’s software specifically designed for a piece of hardware
    • While not as common a term as hardware or software, firmware is everywhere—on your smartphone, your PC’s motherboard, your camera, your headphones, and even your TV remote control.
    • Firmware is just a special kind of software that serves a very narrow purpose for a piece of hardware. While you might install and uninstall software on your computer or smartphone on a regular basis, you might only rarely, if ever, update the firmware on a device, and you’d probably only do so if asked by the manufacturer, probably to fix a problem.

• Carbon Dioxide (CO2):
  • Primary greenhouse gas emitted through human activities. Carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and oil), solid waste, trees and other biological materials, and also as a result of certain chemical reactions (e.g., manufacture of cement). Carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere (or “sequestered”) when it is absorbed by plants as part of the biological carbon cycle.
• Biogenic Carbon Dioxide (CO2):
  • Biogenic Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) are the same. Scientists differentiate between biogenic carbon (that which is absorbed, stored and emitted by organic matter like soil, trees, plants and grasses) and non-biogenic carbon (that found in all other sources, most notably in fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas).
• Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS):
  • CCS involves the capture of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from industrial processes. This carbon is then transported from where it was produced, via ship or in a pipeline, and stored deep underground in geological formations.
  • CCS projects typically target 90 percent efficiency, meaning that 90 percent of the carbon dioxide from the power plant will be captured and stored.
• Decarbonization:
  • Reduction of carbon dioxide emissions through the use of low carbon power sources, achieving a lower output of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.
• Carbon Footprint:
  • There is no universally agreed definition of what a carbon footprint is.
  • A carbon footprint is generally understood to be the total amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that are directly or indirectly caused by an individual, organization, product, or service. These emissions are typically measured in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e).
  • In 2009, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol) published a standard for calculating and reporting corporate carbon footprints. This standard is widely accepted by businesses and other organizations around the world. The GHG Protocol defines a carbon footprint as “the total set of greenhouse gas emissions caused by an organization, directly and indirectly, through its own operations and the value chain.”
• CO2e:
  • CO2e means “carbon dioxide equivalent”. In layman’s terms, CO2e is a measurement of the total greenhouse gases emitted, expressed in terms of the equivalent measurement of carbon dioxide. On the other hand, CO2 only measures carbon emissions and does not account for any other greenhouse gases.
  • A carbon dioxide equivalent or CO2 equivalent, abbreviated as CO2-eq is a metric measure used to compare the emissions from various greenhouse gases on the basis of their global-warming potential (GWP), by converting amounts of other gases to the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide with the same global warming potential.
    • Carbon dioxide equivalents are commonly expressed as million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents, abbreviated as MMTCDE.
    • The carbon dioxide equivalent for a gas is derived by multiplying the tonnes of the gas by the associated GWP: MMTCDE = (million metric tonnes of a gas) * (GWP of the gas).
    • For example, the GWP for methane is 25 and for nitrous oxide 298. This means that emissions of 1 million metric tonnes of methane and nitrous oxide respectively is equivalent to emissions of 25 and 298 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide.
• Carbon Credits or Carbon Offsets:
  • Permits that allow the owner to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases. One credit permits the emission of one ton of carbon dioxide or the equivalent in other greenhouse gases.
  • The carbon credit is half of a so-called cap-and-trade program. Companies that pollute are awarded credits that allow them to continue to pollute up to a certain limit, which is reduced periodically. Meanwhile, the company may sell any unneeded credits to another company that needs them. Private companies are thus doubly incentivized to reduce greenhouse emissions. First, they must spend money on extra credits if their emissions exceed the cap. Second, they can make money by reducing their emissions and selling their excess allowances.

•  GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice):
  • Good manufacturing practice (GMP) describes the minimum standard that a medicines manufacturer must meet in their production processes. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) coordinates inspections to verify compliance with these standards and plays a key role in harmonising GMP activities at European Union (EU) level.
  • Any manufacturer of medicines intended for the EU market, no matter where in the world it is located, must comply with GMP. GMP requires that medicines:
    • are of consistent high quality;
    • are appropriate for their intended use;
    • meet the requirements of the marketing authorisation or clinical trial authorisation.

• MTP (Module Type Package) Standard: 
  • Standardized, non-proprietary way of describing process automation modules from individual components up to production skids, which lets them work with other modules, and fit more easily into larger applications.
  • An MTP contains all the information required to integrate a module into a modular plant, such as the description of operating screens and data objects. The infrastructure graphic shows with which components MTP communication can be realized – even in hazardous locations.