Same Cell, New Dimension: at Fakuma 2026, ENGEL’s Inject AI Turns Data Into Answers
George Nowill- 4 minutes read
|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
In day-to-day production, getting the right answer at the right moment is everything – nobody can afford machine downtime. The ENGEL Virtual Assistant (EVA) understands questions asked in natural language, places them into the context of the machine, draws on relevant expertise, and points to the next step. And it doesn’t stop there: once the operator confirms, EVA can pass approved changes straight through to the machine control system.
Feeling a sense of déjà vu? ENGEL’s autonomous injection moulding cell at Fakuma 2026 looks just like last year’s. But the value it delivers to customers keeps growing, step by step. This year, trade visitors can experience first-hand that the machine doesn’t just respond – it acts. In their personal lives, most people already turn to AI by text or voice for everyday questions. Now, that same kind of dialogue is making its way onto the shop floor. Operators simply describe the issue, and once they confirm, EVA carries out the approved action itself. This is how ENGEL is turning artificial intelligence into measurable production performance.
From Control Panel to Conversation: How Inject AI is Transforming Human-Machine Communication
- Understand: Operators ask their question in their own words – by text or voice. EVA places it in the context of the machine and the current job.
- Interpret: The data is linked to ENGEL’s machine, process and service expertise.
- Explain and recommend: EVA makes complex relationships easy to understand, and suggests the next sensible step is.
- Act and control: EVA prepares approved changes and, once the operator confirms, passes them on to the machine control system.
The ENGEL AI Interface: the Foundation for New and Existing Machines
The technological foundation for these new capabilities is the ENGEL AI Interface. It makes machine context available in a controlled way for approved ENGEL use cases, relying in part on the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which provides machine information to AI applications in a structured, context-aware format. It is available for every new ENGEL and WINTEC injection moulding cell – as an optional feature on new machines, and as a retrofit for existing machines equipped with a CC300 or C3 control unit. This means customers can plan the virtual assistant as a standard equipment option for their production.
There’s More to Come: the AI Ecosystem is Gathering Pace
The cell on show at Fakuma 2026 embodies the bigger vision behind inject AI: automated, self-regulating production that, in future, could even run lights-out. To achieve this, ENGEL is bringing machines and digital solutions together into a single system via EVA and the ENGEL AI Interface, making AI increasingly usable in real production environments. Working together with customers and selected partners, ENGEL is developing new use cases, validating them step by step, and introducing them into real-world production settings.
Quotes
Johannes Kilian, Vice President Process & Application Technology, ENGEL:
