The German Maintenance Days 2025 took place from 11-13 February 2025 in Hamburg with almost 400 participants. Prof. Dr Volker Lohweg from the Institute Industrial IT (inIT) at Technische Hochschule Ostwestfalen-Lippe (TH OWL) was invited by the organising team as a proven AI expert to give a presentation and take part in a panel discussion. Prof Dr. Volker Lohweg gladly accepted this invitation to Hamburg.
The German Maintenance Days: a forum for practitioners
The German Maintenance Days are organised annually by the Maintenance Working Group under the direction of Walter Müller in cooperation with TÜV Nord. They are dedicated to practical questions of maintenance and serve as a common platform for practitioners in particular under the motto ‘Exchange of experience - information - communication’. The Maintenance Days 2025 focused on the topic: ‘The future of maintenance: challenges and solutions for 2025 in a changing world’.
Talk on 'Artificial intelligence (AI) on small amounts of data'
The welcome address and various keynote speeches were followed by six parallel sessions. In session 5, inIT board member Prof. Dr Volker Lohweg explained in his very well-attended presentation entitled ‘AI on small amounts of data in an industrial environment - is that possible?’ how missing information can be supplemented by augmentation methods and information fusion in order to subsequently make better use of this information for machine learning.
Recruiting young talent for maintenance and repair
This was immediately followed by a high-calibre panel discussion on the topic of ‘The new generation in maintenance - finding - integrating - promoting - motivating’, in which the possibilities of finding young talent for maintenance and repair were discussed in depth. The panellists agreed that this varied activity also makes a massive contribution to sustainability.
Valuable contribution to sustainability through AI
Prof. Dr. Volker Lohweg emphasised: ‘It is extremely important for companies to integrate future technologies into industrial processes with the help of AI and to contribute to the necessary sustainability through well-functioning maintenance. Repairing is in!’