TÜV Rheinland, a celebrated third-party testing, inspection, and certification institution, has opened an Innovation Space & Smart Lab in Shanghai.

The Innovation Space is the second founded by TÜV Rheinland globally, marking another innovation milestone for the company. Adopting an open, free, intelligent, and technology-sensitive design, it will provide an optimum environment for creators to foster inspiration and exchange ideas. With varied innovation resources, it is also expected to build an open cooperation platform and innovation incubation center.

Along with the completion of the Innovation Space, TÜV Rheinland’s first Smart Lab has also opened, which is the first fully automatic, intelligent, and unattended laboratory in the testing, inspection, and certification industry. Thus, the company has successfully completed the first tentative application of Reference Architectural Model Industrie 4.0 (RAMI 4.0) in the industry.

Dr. Chen Weikang, the Smart Lab project leader and vice president of Business Stream Industrial Services & Cybersecurity at TÜV Rheinland Greater China, said that nearly all the current tests and experiments in the testing, inspection, and certification industry are completed manually, involving cumbersome procedures, long time spans, and indeterminacy. The smart lab his team created will replace manual operation with automated smart equipment, and monitors the testing process with real-time human-computer interaction.

“The lab will have electronic testing data which via an AI and deep learning model is easy for multidimensional data analysis. Moreover, it can help customers discover potential safety hazards in their R&D design, so improving product safety, reliability, and other performance at the source,” said Dr. Chen.

Chen emphasized that since this more efficient and accurate testing mode can be adopted in over 70% of the main areas in the testing, inspection, and certification industry, the traditional manual mode is likely to be changed industry wide. Meanwhile, against the current background of living with the pandemic, the unmanned lab ensures continuous and reliable testing.