Yesterday, I successfully defended my thesis, “Context-Aware Fault Diagnosis in Smart Manufacturing”. In my thesis, I developed an applied solution to the ever-longing fault diagnosis in smart factories to enable fault tracing and fault origin detection, leading the personnel and maintenance teams to reduce the average 129 mio $ unexpected downtime cost per smart factory per year. To reach my goal, I developed novel pre-processing techniques, advanced AI models, and novel visualization techniques to lead both user groups toward the origin of the fault, which defacto reduces unexpected downtime costs in case of a severe fault.

Now, only the last formalities have to be carried out before I can call myself officially a Dr. rer. nat. in computer sciences. Here, my Ph.D. journey comes to an end. The journey began back in 2016 and formally started in 2018. In this way, I thank all the great people who crossed my path and shaped the final vision for my thesis. I am grateful for all the support from my employer, the h_da, my supervisors, and my wife. The time that came to an end was challenging and rewarding at the time, but I am also excited because the seed for the upcoming chapter of my life was already planted a year ago. Let’s see how this plant develops in the future. Link