AUO Corporation / Taichung Site – Fab 3

With sales of around EUR 10 billion and 40,000 employees, Taiwan’s AUO Corporation is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of LCD flat screens. In response to global challenges such as a shortage of skilled workers, climate change and new customer requirements, the group combined several digitalization and automation technologies in an Industry 4.0 project at its site in Taichung.


The overall goals of the project were to increase manufacturing efficiency, reduce manual activities and become more environmentally friendly. In the process, the company motivated its employees to play an active role in shaping change through training courses, among other things.

A central component of the INDUSTRIE 4.0 AWARD-winning solution is the cyber-physical system (CPS) to support store floor management at the AUO plant. Here, the team uses quality and process data as well as visual information for store floor control in a completely digital manufacturing process. In addition, extensive use of AI in production and logistics not only reduces costs, but also improves the environmental balance in terms of energy consumption and the use of chemicals for wastewater treatment.

The CPS of the Industrie 4.0 solution enables monitoring of more than 100,000 different process parameters captured by machine data points, IoT sensors and other tools. The award winner benefits here in particular from effective data collection, data cleansing and AI modeling. In addition, out-of-spec parameters can be predicted and Big Data analytics can be used to efficiently control production processes and scrap.

Based on the production plan, the CPS creates plans for transport orders. These are then executed by AGVs (Automated Guided Vehicles) so that the transported material is fed directly into the downstream manufacturing process. A visualization of the relevant machine KPIs in real time is available to the store floor management for monitoring all machines in each line.

Using image recognition, a camera-based AI inspects the LCD panels in the production line and automatically sends defective products to a rework line. The AI also classifies the defect and derives the necessary repair measures, which are then automatically carried out by a robot. Before the product goes to shipping, the AI also performs the final inspection after rework.

With the help of AIoT sensors (Artificial intelligence of things), AUO can reliably predict the energy and water consumption of its production. In addition, the possibilities of Big Data analyses are also used here in an exemplary manner to determine the optimum process parameters in chemical processes. Using the data collected by real-time monitoring sensors throughout the production facility, a resource control center immediately detects wasted materials and water supplies – and takes appropriate action based on AI-supported analyses. As a result, the award winner has already been able to reduce water consumption by 27 percent and material waste by 30 percent in production.