CEDRIK NEIKE
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
F or decades, factory floors have been tethered to physical automation controllers – metal boxes filled with circuit boards that must be individually programmed, maintained and replaced. This hardware dependency has become a bottleneck as manufacturers face pressure to reconfigure production lines rapidly and integrate AI into operations.
Audi has severed this connection entirely. The German carmaker is running its Neckarsulm assembly line using virtual controllers housed in data centres 10 kilometres away from the factory floor. When maintenance staff open control cabinets on the production line, they find empty spaces where programmable logic controllers( PLCs) once sat.
This deployment represents the first commercial implementation of fail-safe virtual PLCs in automotive manufacturing, marking a shift from hardware-dependent to software-based automation control.
CEDRIK NEIKE
TITLE: CEO OF DIGITAL INDUSTRIES AND MEMBER OF THE MANAGING BOARD
COMPANY: SIEMENS AG
INDUSTRY: INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY
Joined Siemens Managing Board 2017, became CEO Digital Industries 2020. Former Cisco executive with MBA from INSEAD. Responsible for IoT, cybersecurity and IT transformation.
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