Toespraak van minister Kamp bij het Smart Industry Seminar

Toespraak | 14-04-2015

Ladies and gentlemen,

Back in 1933, Chicago organised a World’s Fair under the slogan A Century of Progress. The exhibitions included practical applications of scientific knowledge that showed how the technologies of the first and second industrial revolutions had shaped peoples’ lives. This was reflected in the fair’s motto: ‘science finds, industry applies, man conforms’.

The world looks a lot different today, after another Century of Progress and another industrial revolution. Innovation can no longer be portrayed as a linear progression from science to product to people. Science and industry advance together and people no longer conform: innovation conforms to man!

From mass production to customer intimacy: just in time and on demand. This is one of the principles of the Smart Industry: Industry 4.0, the revolution we are witnessing now.

The internet of things – or Das Internet der Dinge und Diensten as our hosts put it more precisely – has also made zero-defect manufacturing possible. And flexible production, new technologies such as 3D printing and robotics, and value creation from big data. The possibilities of digitising industry stretch so far they seem endless. We must give businesses and researchers the freedom to develop, experiment and test. In the Netherlands, we’re doing this in ten field labs – large-scale, highly innovative pilot projects set up by consortiums of businesses and knowledge institutes.

We introduced six of these labs to you today:

• You saw how by collecting and analysing real-time information wind turbines, for example, can be serviced on time.
• How sensors and body scans can be used to make perfectly tailored clothes.
• How by monitoring dairy cows in real time and sharing data throughout the value chain, cows become healthier and produce more milk.
• You saw how businesses work together in a digital factory to develop and make complex high-tech machines.
• How the ICT sector and the manufacturing industry are working on reliable and safe ICT infrastructures.
• And how robots can make different products on the same production line more flexibly.

We enjoy presenting these field labs because we’re proud of what they’re doing. And because their work can lead to many more innovations. So I’d like to thank the businesses and institutes involved for what they’ve shown us today.

We now have ten fieldlabs in development, to meet the Smart Industry’s most pressing needs. In June we’ll decide whether to launch more. We recently provided an extra forty million euros for high-tech research: a share of the money will go to Smart Industry.

Innovation is not bound by borders. So we’re keen to work with other countries. Not only Germany, which made Industry 4.0 a Chefsache many years ago, but other EU member states too. That’s why we’re pressing in Brussels for a European network of field labs, where knowledge and experience can be shared. And that’s why I call for a European agenda for the Smart Industry.

I already pressed for this ambitious cause at last month’s Informal Meeting of Competitiveness Ministers in Riga. Apart from labs, we need to take steps at European level to develop uniform industrial digitisation standards, invest in smart industry applications and create a legislative environment that does not inhibit innovation.

First and foremost, we must create a digital single market in Europe. That will involve more than Smart Industry, but is a necessary condition for its future.

Europe is losing momentum in this area. In the past three years, turnover in the ICT sector has grown by 25% in the EU, but by 73% in the rest of the world. This week we can see how much progress India has made, for example. We, together with the European Commission must work hard to create the right conditions to boost innovation and exploit ICT to its full potential. The Commission is expected to announce its digital market package in May. The Netherlands is urging it to include the Smart Industry as a key pillar. Today, we learned through Commissioner Oettinger that Europe, too, is moving in the right direction.

Ladies and gentlemen,

In 1933 people talked about a Century of Progress without knowing that so much more would be possible in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. I expect the number of radical technological innovations to even accelerate in the coming decades. The number of new worldwide patents doubled year on year between 1995 and 2010. There seems to be no end to our inventiveness.

The application of new technologies is also accelerating. A hundred and fifteen years went by between the steamship’s invention in 1788 and its everyday use in the Western world. The telephone and the car were introduced more quickly – 59 and 46 years respectively. The first PC appeared in 1973, but it took 14 years for it to be put to widespread use. Whereas in the case of the internet, this took only eight years.

I don’t know what the breakthrough technologies of the future will be. But they will no doubt be driven by the Smart Industry. I don’t need to tell you that. Automation, robotics and autonomisation boost labour productivity. They are the springboard for economic growth. So let’s work closely together and rise to each other’s challenges to create another Century of Progress. Together with Germany, the Netherlands is keen to take the lead. Here and now. And next year, during our Presidency of the EU, we look forward to showing the world what we have to offer.

Thank you.