Leading German glass manufacturer producing more than eight million glass containers per day to improve planning, strengthen supply chain visibility and support more efficient production operations.

HELSINKI, Oct. 20, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Wiegand-Glas, one of Germany’s leading glass manufacturers, has selected Elisa Industriq’s supply chain planning solutions from sedApta to support production planning and scheduling across its manufacturing operations.

Operating four manufacturing sites in Germany with a combined production capacity of more than eight million glass containers per day, Wiegand-Glas supplies customers across the beverage and food industry. To support future growth and improve planning efficiency, the company is investing in a more data-driven approach to production planning and decision-making.

Using Elisa Industriq’ s sedApta planning solutions, Wiegand-Glas aims to enhance demand planning, inventory management, production planning and factory scheduling processes. The solution will provide greater visibility across operations, support the simulation of different planning scenarios and help planners balance customer demand, inventory levels and production capacity.

“Production planning in the glass industry is particularly complex. Companies must balance long production campaigns, changing customer demand, inventory levels and manufacturing constraints, often months in advance. We are pleased to support Wiegand-Glas as they modernize their planning processes and build greater visibility and agility across their operations,” said Michael Fatum, Managing Director of Elisa Industriq Germany.

The new planning environment will support more efficient collaboration between sales, production, planning and management teams, helping optimise production schedules and improve responsiveness to changing market requirements across Wiegand-Glas’s manufacturing network.

“Our goal is to standardize planning processes, establish a unified data foundation for forecasting, and implement semi-automated production recommendations that balance key performance targets – while respecting operational constraints. Thereby, interactive simulations allow us to evaluate the impact of every decision on critical KPIs, improving transparency, accelerating alignment, and driving operational excellence. The glass-specific experience of Elisa Industriq in industrial planning and manufacturing operations made them suitable partner for this transformation project,” said Lukas Neubauer, one of the managing directors of Wiegand-Glas.

More information & interview requests:

Elisa Industriq Mediadesk, mediadesk@elisaindustriq.com, tel. +358 50 305 1605

About Elisa Industriq

Elisa Industriq creates software solutions for operational intelligence by multiplying industrial knowledge with AI innovation. Our businesses — camLine, sedApta, Polystar, CalcuQuote, TenForce, and Gridle — serve over 2,500 clients globally in the manufacturing, telecommunications, and energy sectors. Elisa Industriq delivers business value for customers by reducing costs, improving quality, and generating growth. Our software solutions integrate with customers’ existing systems to optimize their operations in areas including manufacturing execution, supply chain optimization, network analytics, and energy management. Elisa Industriq is part of Elisa, a pioneer in telecommunications and digital services headquartered in Finland. Our shared mission is a sustainable future through digitalization. Elisa Industriq employs over 1,500 experts in Europe, Asia, and North America. www.elisaindustriq.com

About sedApta

sedApta, a business unit of Elisa Industriq, develops software solutions for supply chain orchestration and manufacturing operations. With a modular platform and an international footprint, sedApta supports manufacturers in planning, scheduling, orchestrating, and monitoring production processes by combining industrial expertise with AI technologies. www.elisaindustriq.com/sedapta

About Wiegand-Glas

The family-run Wiegand-Glas group, with its business areas of Glass, PET, Logistics, and Energy, is one of the leading container glass manufacturers and among the most successful producers of PET packaging in Europe. At its four locations in Steinbach am Wald (Bavaria), Ernstthal, Großbreitenbach, and Schleusingen (Thuringia), the company produces more than eight million glass containers and over eight million preforms and PET containers daily for the beverage and food industries. The group employs over 2,100 staff worldwide and generated a group annual turnover of €730 million in the fiscal year 2025/2026.

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BEIJING, Oct. 20, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — This is a report from China SCIO

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming a new driver of China’s economic growth, transforming manufacturing and supporting modern services while boosting consumption, investment and exports, officials said at a press conference Monday.

Wang Guanhua, spokesperson of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), said China has stepped up its “AI Plus” initiative, accelerating the application of AI in industry.

AI is driving the shift toward smarter manufacturing. Its rapidly expanding applications are generating demand for chips, servers and smart devices, in turn boosting growth in digital product manufacturing, Wang said.

In the first three quarters, digital product manufacturing contributed to more than one-third of the growth in value-added output of industrial enterprises above designated size. Integrated circuit output rose 23.3% year on year during the same period.

With digital workshops and smart production lines coming into operation, AI is rapidly shifting “from an optional technology to a standard part of production,” she said.

At the same briefing, Mao Shengyong, deputy commissioner of the NBS, said the AI adoption rate in key application scenarios among large manufacturing enterprises had exceeded one-third.

Modern services are also benefiting from demand for AI model training, software development, computing power and algorithms. Value-added output in information transmission, software and information technology services rose 10.4% year on year in the first three quarters, with AI providing an important boost, Wang said.

In the first eight months, revenue at enterprises above designated size in the digital technology application sector grew 7.5% year on year, including a 12.8% increase for information technology service providers.

AI is moving out of the lab and into everyday life, turning cutting-edge technology into accessible consumer experiences, Wang said. AI glasses, smartwatches and fitness bands are becoming increasingly popular. In the first three quarters, retail sales of smart wearable devices rose more than 70% year on year.

AI is also reshaping brick-and-mortar retail and spurring the growth of smart retail formats. In the first three quarters, sales at unmanned stores grew more than 25% year on year.

Meanwhile, investment and exports in emerging sectors are expanding due to AI. In the first three quarters, investment in electronic circuit manufacturing, integrated circuit manufacturing and information services rose 58.7%, 14.2% and 20.2% year on year, respectively.

Supported by China’s equipment upgrade and consumer goods trade-in policies, companies are accelerating their adoption of smart technologies, helping drive a 9.7% increase in investment in equipment and tools during the period.

China’s comprehensive industrial supply chains also enable companies to quickly roll out AI hardware and software tailored to different applications and better meet overseas demand, Wang said.

In the first three quarters, exports of electronic components rose 70% year on year, while those of electrical wires and cables increased 25.3%. Products such as AI glasses and smart bionic robots are continuing to expand the range of AI applications worldwide.

Wang said China’s comprehensive industrial system, rapid response capabilities, abundant data resources, vast domestic market, and diverse application scenarios would continue to support the development of AI.

AI applications expand, fueling China’s economic growth
http://www.china.org.cn/2026-10/20/content_118740921.shtml

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SOURCE China SCIO

CRADA and related SpaceWERX Phase I research will explore space-based computing approaches for weather-modeling applications

PASADENA, Calif., Oct. 20, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Sophia Space today announced a new Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with MIT Lincoln Laboratory to investigate how space-based computing approaches could support high-resolution weather-modeling research for remote operating environments.

The collaboration combines MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s weather-modeling research expertise with Sophia Space’s edge-compute concepts. The effort will explore whether distributed computing can support more timely environmental information for planning and decision-support applications.

Under the agreement, MIT Lincoln Laboratory will contribute weather-modeling research expertise, including the identification of modeling configurations, parameters, and data sources for evaluation. The team will develop representative test data and assess weather-model performace against defined research metrics using frameworks compatible with Sophia Space’s initial hardware configurations.

Sophia Space will provide the AI-inference compute environment for evaluating representative weather-model workloads, including terrestrial and potential space-based computing configurations. The organizations will explore high-level system and service architectures that may inform future research into space-based computing applications.

Sophia Space and MIT Lincoln Laboratory are also pursuing related work under Department of the Air Force STTR Topic SF25D-T1201 through the SpaceWERX Futures Series: Adaptive and Intelligent Space Challenge. The related effort examines technologies relevant to autonomous, resilient, and networked space-system operations.

“This partnership reflects our conviction that space-based computing infrastructure should be developed through rigorous collaboration between commercial innovators and world-class research institutions,” said Rob DeMillo, Co-founder and CEO of Sophia Space. “MIT Lincoln Laboratory brings unmatched weather sensing, forecasting and decision-support research expertise, and together we will explore the potential application of space-based computing to weather-modeling research.”

The collaboration aligns with Sophia Space’s research interests in edge-compute architectures, distributed processing, and sensor fusion integration for environments.

“Timely weather information is critical for operations in remote and contested environments,” said Dr. Timothy Bonin, Assistant Group Leader of the Air Traffic Control & Weather Systems Group at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. “This collaboration allows us to explore how space-based computing can help process satellite observations and other environmental data closer to the point of collection, while assessing potential impacts on communications demands and information-delivery timelines.”

About Sophia Space Inc.
Sophia Space is building the future of orbital computing and in-space data centers. Its modular TILE (Thermal-Integrated LEO Edge) technology enables passive computing alongside in-situ data processing, AI acceleration, and edge computing for satellites, defense systems, and commercial space stations—dramatically reducing latency and delivering actionable insights where and when they are needed. Learn more at www.sophia.space.

About MIT Lincoln Laboratory
MIT Lincoln Laboratory is a federally funded research and development (R&D) center chartered to apply advanced technology to problems of national security. Since 1951, the Laboratory has developed technology that has transformed the activities of the defense, scientific, and industry communities. Its mission focuses on long-term technology development as well as rapid system prototyping and demonstration. Through several mechanisms, it facilitates partnerships with companies to advance R&D and increase U.S. technical competitiveness. Learn more at www.ll.mit.edu.

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SOURCE Sophia Space