Life Sciences

The MedTech Factory of the Future

Siemens Healthineers is setting new standards in medical technology at a cutting-edge plant where a digital twin provides very high transparency for the greatest efficiency.

09/2024

Horst Schmidt, Head of Power & Vacuum at Siemens Healthineers, outside the clean room. He wants the new factory to set new standards. Porsche Consulting/Jörg Eberl

Any one of us could find our­selves in this sit­u­a­tion at the emer­gency room (ER) of a major hos­pi­tal: an ambu­lance arrives and the para­medics bring a patient through the doors on a yel­low-wheeled stretch­er. A woman in her mid-40s, she had abrupt­ly lost sen­sa­tion in her right arm and leg. A doc­tor quick­ly appears and speaks with the patient under the bright lights of the ER. Her ini­tial diag­no­sis: “Reduced blood sup­ply to the brain.” Treat­ment needs to begin right away.

An anes­the­si­ol­o­gist admin­is­ters a seda­tive and the patient loses con­scious­ness. The doc­tor inserts a wire-like catheter into a blood ves­sel in the groin and maneu­vers it up into the affect­ed part of the brain. A large screen shows her the instrument’s posi­tion and the pat­tern of the blood ves­sels. She dis­cov­ers that a throm­bus, or blood clot, is block­ing an artery in the brain. Using the catheter, she suc­ceeds in suc­tion­ing it away and there­by free­ing the ves­sel. An hour later the patient can feel her right side again. A very for­tu­nate outcome—for she could soon have suf­fered a stroke with seri­ous con­se­quences. Thanks to the pre­cise diag­no­sis and prompt appro­pri­ate treat­ment, she will leave the hos­pi­tal in a few days in good health.

Navigation system for doctors

Scenes like this now tran­spire thou­sands of times a year at hos­pi­tals in Ger­many that have the right equip­ment. The coun­try is not alone in this respect. “Sim­i­lar mea­sures are taken in Japan and Nepal, in South Africa and the Unit­ed States—new image-sup­port­ed process­es have dra­mat­i­cal­ly improved the prospects for stroke patients,” says Horst Schmidt, Head of Power & Vac­u­um at Siemens Health­i­neers, a lead­ing com­pa­ny in med­ical technology.

A superb working atmosphere features superb work sites. Horst Schmidt and other Forchheim employees enjoy sitting outdoors amid greenery on their breaks.Porsche Consulting/Jörg Eberl

“Time is brain” is a for­mu­la also heard at neu­ro­log­i­cal depart­ments in hos­pi­tals. Endovas­cu­lar stroke treat­ments require not only skill on the part of med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers, but also the abil­i­ty to see exact­ly where their instru­ments are in patients’ bod­ies. This can be achieved by tak­ing mul­ti­ple images in quick suc­ces­sion and com­pil­ing them into a type of video. Siemens Health­i­neers pro­duces this imag­ing equip­ment. “Our devices are essen­tial­ly nav­i­ga­tion sys­tems for doc­tors,” says Schmidt. And he and his team are respon­si­ble for man­u­fac­tur­ing the core com­po­nent of these systems.

Coffee connects

Schmidt’s office is in Siemens Health­i­neers’ newly erect­ed High-Ener­gy Pho­ton­ics (HEP) Cen­ter of Siemens Health­i­neers in Forch­heim, a south­ern Ger­man town near Nurem­berg with a pop­u­la­tion of 34,000. Locat­ed right next to the Main-Danube Canal, this new pro­duc­tion site replaces two older plants that had reached their capac­i­ty lim­its. The HEP Cen­ter will now be man­u­fac­tur­ing the core parts for many of the Siemens Health­i­neers imag­ing sys­tems. Com­pa­nies that expect high per­for­mance from their employ­ees need to offer good work­ing atmos­pheres: attrac­tive con­di­tions, a pos­i­tive team spir­it, high moti­va­tion. This new build­ing hous­es pro­duc­tion and admin­is­tra­tive facil­i­ties in close prox­im­i­ty. Each floor has a casu­al cof­fee bar, where fac­to­ry and office staff can min­gle. Every­day con­tact also fos­ters short paths and prompt solu­tions in inter­dis­ci­pli­nary col­lab­o­ra­tion. How­ev­er, that’s just one small—albeit important—reason why the HEP Cen­ter is a light­house project not only for the med­ical tech­nol­o­gy indus­try, but also for future pro­duc­tion envi­ron­ments in general.

The new High Energy Photonics (HEP) Center is Siemens Healthineers’ innovative factory that makes high-performance X-ray tubes and generators for imaging systems. The HEP Center takes an end-to-end approach to digitalization and automation. Production, development, and administration are unified. By integrating advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and sensor systems, the Center is transitioning from traditional production to automation and digitalization.
In this transparent factory everything is digitally connected, from the production facilities and equipment to the logistics processes—including the building’s digital twin. The HEP Center’s digital transformation aims to raise performance levels, minimize risks, and ensure that knowledge is transparent. Examples include:
  • Digital shop floor and visualization: Tools such as digital shop-floor applications (DSA) and manufacturing execution systems (MES) are being used to visualize key performance indicators (KPIs) and improve decision-making processes.
  • Digitalizing data: The HEP Center concentrates on transforming, generating, processing, and connecting digital data to add more value to production and business processes.
  • Automation: New hardware is automating at least one manual step in each process.
Porsche Consulting, Clara Nabi/Siemens Healthineers

New pro­duc­tion facil­i­ties nat­u­ral­ly need to focus on effi­cien­cy, automa­tion, and dig­i­tal­iza­tion these days. The entire HEP Cen­ter is dig­i­tal­ized and con­nect­ed, and every part of it is dig­i­tal­ly mapped. Yet no jobs have been cut. “The Cen­ter was built to pro­mote growth by rais­ing out­put,” explains Schmidt. He men­tions two more key aims: qual­i­ty and pre­ci­sion. The X‑ray tube assem­blies made at the HEP Cen­ter are installed in X‑ray, mam­mog­ra­phy, CT, and inter­ven­tion­al radi­og­ra­phy sys­tems of Siemens Health­i­neers enabling catheter and other appli­ca­tions for neu­ro­log­i­cal and car­dio­vas­cu­lar care. “It’s a high-end field,” he notes. “Our cus­tomers are doc­tors from around the world who want the best pos­si­ble care for their patients, and are also increas­ing­ly inter­est­ed in mobile units. They’re con­stant­ly seek­ing even bet­ter qual­i­ty and high­er res­o­lu­tions to be even quick­er and more accu­rate in their diag­noses and actions.”

Robots take the night shift

A key part of this tra­jec­to­ry con­sists of automat­ing and dig­i­tal­iz­ing pro­duc­tion. In 2019, Siemens Health­i­neers worked with a team from the Porsche Con­sult­ing man­age­ment con­sul­tan­cy to devel­op its vision of a smart fac­to­ry. “Back at the begin­ning we were look­ing down quite a long road,” says Dr. Jens Fürst, Prin­ci­pal Key Expert Dig­i­tal­iza­tion & Automa­tion. “But we’ve cov­ered it amaz­ing­ly fast.” The new com­plex, with an invest­ment of around 350 mil­lion euros, was com­plet­ed in less than five years—a remark­able peri­od of time for a project of that com­plex­i­ty con­sist­ing of three broad pro­duc­tion floors and six nar­row­er adja­cent office floors for a total sur­face area equiv­a­lent to eight soc­cer fields.

Dr. Jens Fürst and Dr. Markus Kaupper are responsible for the strategic priorities of digitalization and automation at the High Energy Photonics Center.Porsche Consulting/Jörg Eberl

Dr. Fürst likes to take guests onto the inte­ri­or ‘bal­cony’, a nar­row gallery on the third floor of the pro­duc­tion hall with an impres­sive panoram­ic view of the assem­bly lines. The birds-eye per­spec­tive affords a good overview of the pro­duc­tion steps for the X‑ray tubes as well as the gen­er­a­tors. Put very sim­ply, the X‑ray tubes are first made in a clin­i­cal clean room. At night they under­go high-volt­age ‘con­di­tion­ing’ to achieve even high­er lev­els of clean­li­ness by auto­mat­ed robots. When employ­ees arrive for the early shift the next day, they test the tubes’ func­tion­al­i­ty and pre­ci­sion man­u­al­ly in insu­lat­ed cab­ins. Only then are the tubes released for instal­la­tion in their end devices at other plants.

Jointly developed digitalization strategy

Dr. Fürst works close­ly togeth­er with Dr. Markus Kaup­per. “Five years ago, I was excit­ed about the tech­ni­cal and dig­i­tal­iza­tion prospects, but couldn’t real­ly judge what would be pos­si­ble from today’s per­spec­tive,” says the lat­ter in recall­ing the ini­tial stages of the new plant. Today, Dr. Kaup­per is the HEP Center’s Head of Digitalization.

Dr. Peter Schardt, a physicist who has been with Siemens Healthineers for three decades, is the company’s Chief Technology Officer: “Our first completely digitalized factory is a crucial part of our smart factory network.”Siemens Healthineers

Near­ly every part of the fac­to­ry along with every process and every com­po­nent that goes through it is dig­i­tal­ly mapped. The dimen­sions, phys­i­cal prop­er­ties, and per­for­mance data are all known, form­ing a dig­i­tal twin of the fac­to­ry. “The HEP Cen­ter is our first com­plete­ly dig­i­tal­ized fac­to­ry and a cru­cial part of our smart fac­to­ry net­work,” says Dr. Peter Schardt, Chief Tech­nol­o­gy Offi­cer at Siemens Health­i­neers. “A reli­able and con­nect­ed pro­duc­tion envi­ron­ment is of cru­cial impor­tance in the med­ical sec­tor,” he adds.

Service ‘senses’ when it’s needed

If a prod­uct doesn’t pass its final qual­i­ty con­trol with fly­ing col­ors, the experts start by search­ing for pos­si­ble caus­es in the dig­i­tal twin. They might ascer­tain, for exam­ple, that the grip­per sur­faces at a cer­tain spot are not an ideal match for the prod­uct, which can lead to inac­cu­ra­cies. They also test new pro­duc­tion lines vir­tu­al­ly to elim­i­nate any prob­lems before they go into oper­a­tion. “They’ll usu­al­ly then run quite smooth­ly when we put them into actu­al prac­tice,” says Dr. Kaup­per. This rep­re­sents an enor­mous boost in effi­cien­cy, espe­cial­ly for small pro­duc­tion lines like most of those at the Center.

Dr. Jens Fürst and Dr. Markus Kaupper look out over the new smart factory. During the night shift, only robots work here and prepare everything for the early shift teams.Porsche Consulting/Jörg Eberl
Siemens Healthineers continues to rely on manual labor where needed. New hardware is being used to automate manual production processes.Porsche Consulting/Jörg Eberl
Computers play an important role in human-machine collaboration. Each side contributes their strengths to enhance productivity and innovation.Porsche Consulting/Jörg Eberl
Uncompromising precision is needed to weld the metal-glass X-ray tubes. The work is done under clean-room conditions. To make the glass envelopes, Siemens Healthineers has traditionally employed its own glass blowers.Siemens Healthineers
Eye for detail: The new factory’s top-notch conditions foster innovations and subsequent medical advances. Doctors and hospitals also receive individualized service for the operation and maintenance of their X-ray systems.Siemens Healthineers
Nearly complete: A worker in the CT assembly process. X-ray tubes are the system’s core components.Porsche Consulting/Jörg Eberl
Despite automation, Siemens Healthineers does not entrust certain tasks solely to machines—like here for the ports on a CT system.Porsche Consulting/Jörg Eberl

Because the dig­i­tal twin is con­stant­ly fed with real data that are sup­port­ed by arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, Siemens Health­i­neers is also in a posi­tion to make increas­ing­ly pre­cise pre­dic­tions. Com­po­nent wear is one exam­ple. As part of the Siemens Health­i­neers Tube­Guard pro­gram, some physi­cians allow the com­pa­ny access to their sys­tems’ sen­sors while in oper­a­tion. The data can be used to pre­dict when the X‑ray tube will fail with a high level of accu­ra­cy. “A ser­vice tech­ni­cian is already there with a replace­ment before the cus­tomer noti­fies us,” says Schmidt. This rep­re­sents yet anoth­er boost in effi­cien­cy, not only for Siemens Health­i­neers but also for the hos­pi­tals and health­care per­son­nel who can then plan exact­ly for the com­par­a­tive­ly brief down­times need­ed for service.

Desire for own programs

Work at the HEP Cen­ter has also brought fun­da­men­tal changes for the staff. “You can’t impose these lev­els of automa­tion and dig­i­tal­iza­tion overnight,” says Ver­e­na Gol­lisch, Trans­for­ma­tion Man­ag­er at the Cen­ter. “A lot of the pre­vi­ous tasks are no longer need­ed, and many peo­ple had to adopt a new approach to their work. Some view it as an oppor­tu­ni­ty, oth­ers can be daunt­ed by it. We’ve always found it impor­tant to get our per­son­nel on board early on, have them help shape the changes, get their feed­back, and make the Center’s new oppor­tu­ni­ties evi­dent to everyone.”

Verena Gollisch, Transformation Manager at the HEP Center, in a stairwell of the new factory. Production and office staff mingle every day at the coffee bars on each floor. Proximity fosters collaboration between the two divisions.Porsche Consulting/Jörg Eberl

Count­less events encour­aged employ­ees to help get the HEP Cen­ter up and run­ning. These includ­ed hackathons where the employ­ees could write pro­grams to improve process­es, and pro­tect­ed spaces where they could try out new activ­i­ties. The fac­to­ry is now near­ly com­plete­ly up and run­ning, and Dr. Kaup­per empha­sizes that the employ­ees have han­dled the adjust­ment well. “We’ve dis­cov­ered many new tal­ents among our team mem­bers,” he remarks. “There’s a logis­tics spe­cial­ist, for exam­ple, who enjoys pro­gram­ming in her spare time and devel­oped an app that lets cell phones func­tion as scanners.”

People remain indispensable

Many work­places now have large screens that show employ­ees what they should be doing with which tools in the next steps of their work. While this could be viewed as micro­manag­ing, it can also be wel­comed as assis­tance or as a direct form of qual­i­ty con­trol that the com­put­er assumes for the work­er. “For­tu­nate­ly, our employ­ees have adopt­ed the view that the com­put­ers aren’t elim­i­nat­ing, but rather expe­dit­ing, their work,” says Gol­lisch. And that is in fact the case at the vast major­i­ty of work sta­tions. The peo­ple and their machines and pro­grams com­ple­ment each other, because each can con­tribute their respec­tive strengths. But the peo­ple remain in charge. And are irre­place­able in many areas any­way. Siemens Health­i­neers employs glass blow­ers, for exam­ple, to pro­duce its X‑ray tubes. This clas­sic skilled trade is indis­pens­able for the high-end prod­ucts made at the HEP Center.

That might be yet anoth­er les­son to be learned from this light­house project: one should focus on automa­tion and digitalization—yet rely on one’s employ­ees at the same time. Only when every­one and every­thing work togeth­er can it real­ly be con­sid­ered to be a fac­to­ry of the future.

Commentary

From Vision to Reality

By Marc Ziegler, Senior Partner, Porsche Consulting
Marc Ziegler, Senior Partner, Porsche Consulting.Porsche Consulting
Siemens Healthineers developed its vision for a smart factory in 2019 together with Porsche Consulting. As management consultants, we wanted to create a framework for digitalization and automation—one that optimizes target processes and connects these processes with each other. Porsche Consulting’s team contributed a high level of practical expertise in smart factories to this project. Our experience derives not only from the automotive industry, but also from many other sectors. The project with Siemens Healthineers was exceptionally exciting for us. We were immediately delighted by the company’s ‘greenfield plant’ proposal: a completely new factory and open spaces with no outdated systems to accommodate. In short, superb conditions for innovations. And for consultants. Unlike what is often the case elsewhere, we didn’t need to adapt any existing processes in Forchheim to the realm of possibility. Instead of seeking compromises in a number of areas, we could design new, optimized processes right from the start. Over the course of our excellent partnership, the people at Siemens Healthineers were always open and willing to consistently put suggestions and use cases into practice. Together, our work on this project was as pragmatic as it was visionary. Everyone is justifiably proud of the results. The vision from 2019 has become an everyday reality with marked improvements and a clear view on into the future. Contact: marc.ziegler@porsche-consulting.com
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