Festo has opened its first North American Festo Experience Center, featuring a demonstration hall where augmented reality devices allow visitors to virtually experience manufacturing and processing systems used in such industries as semiconductors and electronics, assembly and test, food and packaging, and process automation. Located in Santa Clara, Calif., the 5,000 square-foot Festo Experience Center will showcase rotating and permanent displays of the latest automated manufacturing and processing technologies from Festo.
Other Festo Experience Centers are located in Delft, The Netherlands; Bangalore, India; and Shanghai, China.
Current plans for the North American Center call for demonstrations of:
- Modular and reconfigurable systems conforming to the concepts of Industry 4.0;
- Cyber-physical devices that change functionality based on downloadable apps;
- Predictive analytics relying on smart sensors, Big Data and connectivity to the cloud to alert teams before system failures occur;
- Cloud-based dashboards and data analytics to aid process and overall equipment effectiveness;
- Technologies for improving energy efficiency in manufacturing and processing; and
- Online productivity tools for bringing products and systems to market faster with less engineering overhead.
The North American Festo Experience Center also features a laboratory for focused customer technologies, as well as training and meeting areas.
