The first guest lecture of the Department of Industrial Engineering & Management in the spring semester started with the exciting topic of AI, its added value and application in technical building equipment at the Schindler Group.
Speakers of the lecture were Dr. Pau-y Chow, Lead Smart Buildings & Smart Cities at Schindler Deutschland AG, and Annika Jamal El-Din, Regional Manager at Schindler Austria. With their keynote speeches, they led the students through an informative evening and showed them possible career paths and ideas for their future.
Schindler has over 70,000 employees, can look back on 150 years of company history and is one of the world's leading providers of elevators and escalators.
The central part of the presentation dealt with the topic of AI and how it can be used successfully. According to Pau-y Chow, the basis for successful AI is the availability of data for digitization, experience with the respective products and a strong IT competence to be able to process the available data as efficiently as possible.
Mr. Chow also gave the students an overview of the historical use of AI. The journey through the history of artificial intelligence goes back to 1936. It was here that the British mathematician Alan Turing introduced the Turing machine.
The next milestone in this journey through time takes us to 1950, when the Turing test was carried out. This test makes it possible to assess a machine's ability to imitate human intelligence.
Further milestones in the field of artificial intelligence include the first chatbot application ELIZA in 1966 and the introduction of CHAT GPT in 2022.
Annika Jamal El-Din led through the second part of the speech. She focused on the advantages and benefits of AI-supported solutions and practical examples from Schindler. AI can contribute to sustainability through targeted application.
By using an efficient and optimized flow of people based on data and the possibility of individualization per building, Schindler's PORT technology incorporates user behavior. Tirol Kliniken is a regional example of this. They have converted the 30-year-old lift systems in the surgery building to the new Port technology. This could save 30% of journeys and thus significantly reduce energy consumption.
To summarize succinctly, the speakers gave the following impulses to the students: “There is no future without AI and no AI without people. AI is not a product. In order to be able to use AI successfully, the first step is to understand AI correctly. Factors such as the human being, products, processes and networks can be integrated in the second step.”
Thank you to the speakers for the informative speech and lessons learned.
Get-together after the lecture. ©MCI/Lhotzky
Welcome and introduction of the guest speakers by Prof. Gerhard Hillmer ©MCI/Lhotzky
Industrial Engineering & Management | Master
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