What is the best way to connect old machines to new systems? This was the very question that spurred umati, the connectivity initiative of the mechanical and plant engineering industry, to organize a hackathon in cooperation with the international United Grinding Group. A total of 30 digitalization experts from 17 companies attended the networking event in Steffisburg, Switzerland. The main focus of the hackathon was on bringing together experts to enable the exchange of data between existing (so-called brownfield) machine and software systems. Dr. Alexander Broos, Head of Research and Technology at the VDW (German Machine Tool Builders' Association), Frankfurt am Main, and umati project manager, is pleased about the effective continuation of the work: "We were able to build on the successful launch in 2022 and also welcomed many new participants on board. The hackathon has attracted three further partners to the umati community. This shows us that there is still plenty of work to do in bringing about the intelligent networking of machines. More and more experts are recognizing how we need to collaborate across corporate boundaries, and which opportunities umati can offer in achieving our common goal. "Software architect Timo Barth from Codewerk, a Karlsruhe based software service and provider participating in umati, agrees: "It was a useful event for us. It was very well organized, meaning that we were able to discover a great many things related to umati. It also provided an excellent opportunity to exchange ideas and learn from each other and from the numerous experts."
