At its meeting on November 24, 2022, the Board of Trustees of the Health Insurance Ombudsman's Office settled the succession of the previous Managing Director of the Ombudsman's Office in Lucerne, Ms. Morena Hostettler Socha, who is taking well-deserved retirement. In doing so, the Board of Trustees has elected Mrs. Susanne Müller Ineichen, born 1968, from Rothenburg (LU), as the new ombudswoman. Ms. Müller Ineichen is a lawyer and has been with the ombudsman's office since February 2019. At the beginning of 2021, Ms. Müller Ineichen was elected deputy to the previous post holder. She will take up her position as the new executive director on August 1, 2023.

The main task of the Ombudsman Foundation is to resolve misunderstandings between insured persons and insurers and to mediate solutions in the event of disagreements. Its jurisdiction extends to both the compulsory health insurance (OKP) and the supplementary medical expenses and daily sickness allowance insurances operated by the health insurers of their partner companies. The aim of its activities is to help insured persons solve their problems with insurers free of charge and in an unbureaucratic manner and to avoid legal proceedings. The ombudsman's office is active throughout Switzerland.

The designated new Managing Director Susanne Müller Ineichen worked as a clerk at the District Court of Lucerne and the Administrative Court of the Canton of Lucerne after completing her studies and training as a lawyer. Subsequently, she worked for several years in the legal services of Concordia Health Insurance, SUVA and CSS Health Insurance. One focus of her work was the area of data protection. In addition to numerous further training courses, Ms. Müller Ineichen also completed the health insurance specialist course of santésuisse and obtained the corresponding professional certificate in 2021.

Source: Health Insurance Ombudsman Office

In its just-released 2022 report, the Global ESG Monitor (GEM) looks at the environmental, social and governance reporting of 350 of the world's most important companies. GEM is the international leader in analyzing ESG reporting transparency and publishes a comprehensive annual report that analyzes non-financial reporting in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia. "2022 was a year in which the importance of ESG issues increased dramatically," said Michael Diegelmann, co-founder of the GEM. "Environmental and social crises fill the news daily, and companies need to clearly communicate what they are doing and how they are managing their efforts. Progress is being made, but the bottom line is that too many large multinational companies are still inadequate in their ESG reporting. This will not go unnoticed by investors and the public."

Global ESG reporting in focus

For the GEM 2022, 625 ESG reports from 350 companies represented in indices of ten major stock exchanges were analyzed. Comprehensive reports on the individual regions will be published over the coming weeks. At the end of November, the global GEM report was published, covering the four main continental stock market indices from Europe, the USA, Asia and Australia, such as EuroSTOXX), S&P 50 orASX 50 (Australia).

Only a few companies came close to the top score of 100 on the rating scale of the so-called "rating scale". GEM Assay, the Global ESG Monitor's proprietary analysis model. The highest score worldwide for transparency in non-financial reporting was 90, the lowest 7 points. The GEM Assay uses 184 criteria to analyze corporate ESG reporting. ESG reporting is used in a variety of ways, including as a factor in rating agencies' ESG scores, which are used by investors to guide investment decisions. 

Comparing the transparency of ESG reporting across continents, the average score for companies in Europe is 66 out of 100, followed by 56 points in Asia and 53 points each in the U.S. and Australia. 

European companies lead the way

"It is no surprise that the GEM finds such wide variation in reporting transparency across countries and regions. There is still no single, internationally recognized standard in ESG reporting, and this poses challenges for companies," said Ariane Hofstetter, GEM Co-Founder and Head of Research and Data Science. "Even though important analytical tools such as materiality analysis are widely used, the result is often overshadowed by window dressing and a low level of traceability and commitment."

The survey clearly shows that European companies are setting the pace in ESG transparency worldwide, with eight of the top ten companies coming from Europe and two from Asia. The company with the highest overall score and thus the most transparent ESG report was the Italian energy company Enel SpA.

The GEM Top Ten

The biggest shortcomings in ESG reporting

The GEM identifies deficits in ESG reporting in various areas. These include, for example, gender diversity on boards of directors and supervisory boards. Here, it was shown that the greatest gender diversity exists in the USA, for example. There, 90 percent of companies have mixed boards. The average ratio of women to men on management bodies is most balanced in Europe, at 50 percent in each case, while in the USA and Australia, for example, only a third of board members are women. 

Climate targets are also being achieved differently by global companies: many of the companies analyzed in the GEM have addressed CO2 emissions. But only a limited number of the companies analyzed are already carbon neutral. Most companies have set carbon neutrality targets and aim to achieve net zero in the future. The largest share of companies claiming to be CO2 neutral is found among the S&P 50 in Asia, the lowest in Europe.

Other problem areas that are assessed differently around the world: Many ESG reports still leave supply chains in the dark. In Europe, slightly more than half of the companies disclose at least the geographic location of their suppliers; in Asia, the USA and Australia, in some cases less than a third of the listed companies do so. And statements about child and forced labor continue to raise questions. While 72 % of EuroSTOXX companies disclose child, forced or compulsory labor risk in their ESG reporting, only 54 % from the US, 51 % from Asia and 36 % from Australia do so. And it gets worse: In Europe, 60 % of companies disclose strategies to eliminate forced and child labor and other forms of exploitation. In the U.S. (27 %), Asia (27 %) and Australia (26 %), the figure is less than a third each.

Lack of international standards in ESG reporting

According to GEM 2022, 96 % of companies in the global sample refer to frameworks and standards in their reports, with an average of 9.1 frameworks mentioned. In the EuroSTOXX, an average of 12.3 frameworks are mentioned. Some companies place too much emphasis on frameworks and publish separate reports specifically tailored to individual standards. For investors and other stakeholders, orientation is difficult and there is a risk that companies select the frameworks with the most favorable requirements for them.

Final examinations are also not yet mandatory or common. Such audits should actually promote trust and reliability. But only 68 % of companies voluntarily provide assurance on their disclosures through a financial statement audit. A limited assurance audit is still the most common (88 of the 353 audited reports indicate the depth of the audit).

European companies are increasingly preparing for an external audit. With its legislative proposal of the Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the European Commission is introducing an EU-wide duty to audit sustainability information with limited assurance. In perspective, this is to transition to a reasonable assurance audit requirement.

Source: Global ESG Monitor

The QAS industry solution for occupational safety and health protection is specifically geared to the staffing industry and is accessible to all companies in the staffing services sector - including non-members of swissstaffing. By joining the industry solution and using the safety system, staffing companies can improve the safety of all employees - both permanent and temporary. In addition, by using the QAS industry solution, staffing companies meet the requirements of EKAS Directive No. 6508.

Industry solution QAS - the system

The QAS safety system is designed to be practice-oriented and compliant with the law. It includes several components such as a manual with practice-oriented templates, checklists and aids for implementation, as well as a digital system for use with "safe", which also allows mobile access. In addition, experts are available for consultation, safety training courses are held, and an annual exchange of experience takes place. It has been proven that an industry solution leads to a reduction in the number of accidents and days of absence.

EKAS certificate

The Federal Coordination Commission for Occupational Safety EKAS was defined in the Federal Council's dispatch on the UVG as the central information and coordination body for occupational safety and health. It coordinates the prevention measures, the areas of responsibility in enforcement and the uniform application of the regulations. Its decisions are binding. The certificate "Personnel Hiring (EKAS No. 82)" certifies that the sponsoring body of QAS has introduced and effectively applies the industry solution for occupational safety and health in accordance with the EKAS guideline on the involvement of occupational physicians and specialists in occupational safety (EKAS 6508, ASA guideline).

Source: www.swissstaffing.ch/QAS

With UN Sustainable Development Goal 9, the international community aims to promote sustainable industry and infrastructure. The digitization of industry can influence market access and the positioning of companies in sustainable value chains. "Environmental management along the supply chain can be improved through the use of digital technologies. This is because they can continuously provide data and thus improve transparency. This makes sustainability risks such as relocation to countries with lower social and environmental standards visible and gives us clues as to how global value chains can be made more sustainable," explains Silke Niehoff from the Institute for Transformative Sustainability Research IASS in Potsdam. She adds that However, investment in digital tools and the necessary skills would still be lacking in some countries.

Digitization of industry: Smaller companies have some catching up to do

Silke Niehoff is co-author of a comparative study entitled. "Sustainability related impacts of digitalisation on cooperation in global value chains". The study examines digital development in the emerging markets of China and Brazil and the industrialized country of Germany. Employees in companies of various sizes and in several sectors were surveyed.

The researchers were able to show that the inequalities at country level are not as pronounced as experts had predicted. However, clear differences emerged within all countries, between different sectors and companies of different sizes. In all countries, fewer than 10 percent of companies said they would fully digitize their processes for working with partners. Partial digitization, on the other hand, is more widespread: 46 percent of Brazilian, 61 percent of Chinese and 63 percent of German companies currently already work in this way.

Large companies are making greater use of the opportunities offered by digitization than small and medium-sized enterprises in all three countries. "However, SMEs form the backbone of national economies and should not be left behind. Therefore, global governance is needed to capture inequalities at the country level, and additionally national support policies to strengthen SMEs," says co-author Grischa Beier from the IASS.

Automotive sector is a digitalization pioneer 

Opportunities for more sustainable production could be provided by fully digital integration of production data into companies' environmental management systems. It potentially simplifies environmental compliance and the environmental certification process for companies and regulators, which often require analysis of the entire value chain. However, only 9 percent of German companies, 3 percent of Brazilian companies and 6 percent of Chinese companies currently use this option.

In Germany, 84 percent of respondents from the automotive sector reported at least partial digitization of collaboration processes, compared with 72 percent of Chinese and 62 percent of Brazilian companies. More than in other sectors, the number of cooperation partners among the companies surveyed has decreased as a result of the digitization of processes, while the quality of cooperation has improved as a result, according to the respondents. According to the authors, the automotive sector is an interesting object for future research: other companies could benefit from an evaluation of the experiences from this sector on their way to more sustainability.

Source: IASS

Computer systems that use artificial intelligence to interpret images and help doctors make diagnoses are increasingly being used in medicine. They do this by comparing the new images with existing image data. In the process, the machine "learns" continuously. However, machine learning based on images has its pitfalls.

Copyright can prevent machine learning

Indeed, using real image data to train machine learning can raise practical and ethical issues: The images could violate copyright laws, infringe on people's privacy, or be biased toward a particular racial or ethnic group. To avoid these pitfalls, researchers can use image generation programs to create synthetic data for model training. However, these techniques have limited application because expert knowledge is often required to design an image generation program that can produce effective training data.

Researchers at MIT, the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab and other institutes therefore took a different approach. Instead of developing customized image generation programs for a specific training task, they collected a dataset of 21,000 publicly available programs from the Internet. Then they used this large collection of basic image generation programs to train a computer vision model. These programs generate different images that represent simple colors and textures. The researchers did not edit or modify the programs, each of which consists of only a few lines of code.

Image programs as a valid replacement

The models they trained with this large dataset of programs classified images more accurately than other synthetically trained models. And although their models performed worse than those trained with real data, the researchers showed that increasing the number of image programs in the data set also increased the model's performance and showed a path to higher accuracy.

"It turns out that using many uncurated programs is actually better than using a small set of programs that need to be manipulated by humans. Data is important, but we've shown that you can get pretty far without real data," says Manel Baradad, an electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) doctoral student in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and lead author of the research paper describing the technique.

Rethinking the pre-training

Machine learning models are typically pre-trained, meaning they are first trained on a dataset to develop parameters that can be used to accomplish another task. A model for classifying X-ray images might be trained on a huge dataset of synthetically generated images before being trained on a much smaller dataset of real X-ray images for its actual task.

The researchers had previously shown that they could use a handful of image generation programs to create synthetic data for pretraining the model, but the programs had to be carefully designed so that the synthetic images matched certain properties of the real images. This made it difficult to extend the technique. The new work instead used an enormous dataset of uncurated image generation programs.

Machine learning with "artificially" generated images

The researchers began by assembling a collection of 21,000 image-generating programs from the Internet. All of the programs are written in a simple programming language and consist of just a few snippets of code, so they generate images quickly. "These programs were designed by developers around the world to create images that have some of the characteristics we are interested in. They create images that look almost like abstract art," Baradad explains.

These simple programs can be run so quickly that the researchers did not have to create images in advance to train the model. The researchers found that they could generate images and train the model simultaneously, streamlining the process. They used their huge dataset of image generation programs to pre-train computer vision models for both supervised and unsupervised image classification tasks. In supervised learning, image data is tagged with labels, while in unsupervised learning, the model learns to categorize images without labels.

Accuracy improvement

When they compared their pre-trained models to modern computer vision models pre-trained with synthetic data, their models were more accurate, i.e., they assigned images to the correct categories more often. While accuracy was still lower than models trained with real data, their technique narrowed the performance gap between models trained with real data and those trained with synthetic data by 38 percent.

"Importantly, we show that performance scales logarithmically for the number of programs collected. We don't reach performance saturation, which means that if we collect more programs, the model would perform even better. So there is an opportunity to extend our approach," Manel says.

The researchers also used each image-generating program for pre-training to determine the factors that contribute to the model's accuracy. They found that the model performed better when a program generated a greater variety of images. They also found that colorful images with scenes filling the entire canvas improved the model's performance the most.

Having demonstrated the success of this pretraining approach, the researchers now want to extend their technique to other types of data, such as multimodal data containing text and images. They also want to continue looking for ways to improve the classification performance of images.

Source: Techexplore.com

The International Metrology Congress (Congrès International de Métrology, CIM) was first held in Bordeaux in 1983. Since then, the event has moved around a lot until it settled definitively in Lyon. Metrologists are used to working alone, but they need to keep up to date with the latest technical standards, regulations and technological developments. It is from this desire and need that this International Congress of Metrology was born. This biennial congress moves with the times and their constraints, but has always kept its DNA, as Pierre Barbier, initiator of the event, notes.

International Metrology Congress: Embedded in important trade show

This year's congress is once again dedicated to industry and R&D best practices applied to measurement, analysis and testing. The event sees itself as a meeting point for the scientific community, industry and institutional organizations in metrology. Once again, from March 7 to 10, the congress will take place within the framework of the French industrial trade fair "Global industry" will be held at Eurexpo Lyon, where around 40,000 visitors are expected. 

The event extends over four days with the aim of addressing, studying and dealing with all the topics that meet the international challenges. The International Metrology Congress is an opportunity to share expertise and gather information on the development of research in the field of measurement.

A "muscular" program at the heart of global challenges

200 lectures are scheduled, six roundtable discussions on the current topics of hydrogen, the circular economy, Industry 4.0, digital transformation, professions and health. A plenary event with the motto "Limitless Metrology at your fingertips" is also dedicated to focal points such as Industry 4.0, the environment and health. There will also be a supporting program with many networking opportunities, including in the "Village Métrologie", where various poster presentations will also be on display. For the congress, the organizers expect about 800 participants from 45 countries, mainly from industry, but about one third also from education and research as well as from calibration institutes. 

Source and further information: www.cim2023.com

The auditing firm Deloitte has published a new resilience barometer for the Swiss economy. For this purpose, the authors divided the economy into eight areas with further sub-areas. Each sub-sector was then examined for its resilience to three selected scenarios. The scenarios chosen were firstly a highly contagious and disease-causing pandemic, secondly an aggravation of global political tensions with the formation of blocs, an increase in sanctions and the disruption of supply chains, and thirdly a further aggravation of climate change with extreme climatic events such as heat waves or floods. All these scenarios can be assumed to pose a considerable risk to basic supply.

Significant differences between the economic sectors

The study reveals significant differences between the eight areas that are central to the functioning of the economy: The financial market infrastructure, for example, is gratifyingly resilient. The currently much-discussed energy supply shows certain weaknesses, but the basic supply can largely be maintained. Healthcare is less resilient, and would suffer considerable restrictions in the Global Pandemic Outbreak and Geopolitical Tension and Bloc Formation scenarios. Logistics is also highly vulnerable due to globalization, especially in light of the Geopolitical Tensions scenario. "Where people are doing important work locally, it becomes difficult in the event of a crisis," said Ralph Wyss, partner and head of the defense, security and justice industry practice at Deloitte Switzerland.

Logistics as a core must be strengthened

While certain gaps in healthcare provision are unsurprising in the event of a severe pandemic, the resilience of logistics may well be strengthened. It is clear that the Swiss economy is heavily dependent on global supply chains that are not resilient to either a pandemic or an increase in political tensions. "Functioning logistics is at the heart of the economy. Companies and associations should therefore quickly address the weaknesses revealed in the study," explains Ralph Wyss.

Resilience strongly dependent on scenario

Of the three scenarios analyzed, a pandemic has the strongest impact on the Swiss economy - even though Switzerland and the whole world have already gained a lot of experience with Covid-19: "It is very difficult to build up better resilience in the event of an even more contagious pandemic. Ultimately, in such a case, healthy people help sick people. As long as technology does not significantly substitute for people, the weakness in the system will remain," says Ralph Wyss.

The increase in extreme climatic events is having a less pronounced, but nevertheless gradually noticeable, impact. In addition to logistics, these are also having an increasing impact on food supplies. "In the next three to five years, extreme climatic events are not expected to jeopardize the basic supply of the Swiss economy. Forecasts further into the future are very much dependent on the success of the international community in halting the global rise in temperature," says Céline Neuenschwander, researcher at Deloitte Switzerland and project leader of the study.

Public safety depends heavily on the militia system

Public safety is largely resilient to crises in all scenarios. One outlier is the medical sector, which suffers severe restrictions in the pandemic scenario. The army, as the last resort for maintaining public security, has difficulties, especially in the Geopolitical Tensions scenario, as armaments are now difficult to procure. In addition, numerous institutions such as the army, civil defense, crisis teams, and even the fire department are based on the militia system almost throughout the country. "As the duration of a crisis progresses, the people responsible in a militia function will have to return to their traditional professions. This is the big challenge for our otherwise well-functioning militia system," says Ralph Wyss.

Financial Market Infrastructure and Energy Supply Pleasingly Resilient

On the positive side, financial market infrastructure and energy supply both show high resilience scores in the overall evaluation. However, in the event of strong geopolitical tensions and intensified bloc formation, the resilience of Switzerland's energy supply rapidly declines. "Given the increasingly digitalized economy, a vulnerable energy supply is problematic. Currently, most companies have therefore taken measures to understand their own consumption more precisely and are preparing to reduce power consumption in the short term and plan how to deal with contingency and power interruptions," says Ralph Wyss.

The study deliberately distinguishes between maintaining the current comfortable situation and a basic supply that only provides what is necessary. "It is gratifying to see that, with few exceptions, the Swiss economy can ensure a good basic supply. However, the weaknesses identified show that companies and authorities need to address the issue of resilience broadly. While the current focus on energy supply is important, it does not do justice to the breadth of the challenges ahead," concludes Ralph Wyss.

Source: Deloitte

Switzerland has one of the most developed healthcare systems in the world. However, as recent studies show, it is lagging behind in the area of digitalization. The aging population and the accompanying increase in chronic diseases, as well as staff shortages, are increasingly putting a strain on the healthcare system and thus also on the quality of patient care.

Wearables for patient care

Digital solutions can remedy the situation by improving the efficiency of hospitals. The use of mobile sensors - so-called wearables - will play an important role here. With the help of these sensors, patients' vital signs can be permanently measured and wirelessly transmitted, enabling automated and continuous monitoring of their state of health. This technology can make an important contribution to maintaining excellent healthcare in the future.

"Innovation projects such as vital sign monitoring with wearables are only possible with a highly available, high-performance network," says Marc Strasser, CIO at Basel University Hospital. "We use a WiFi and Bluetooth-enabled network infrastructure from Cisco. Since common wearables communicate with Bluetooth, we can use our existing infrastructure for data transmission. Technology should never be an end in itself, but should always improve the situation for our patients and staff."

Automatic transmission of measurement data

With the help of Cisco DNA Center, a comprehensive control center for the network, third-party applications can be installed on the Cisco access points. In close cooperation with Cisco and the University Hospital Basel, Leitwert has developed software that turns the Cisco Access Points into Bluetooth gateways for data transmission from wearables. As soon as a registered wearable is in the vicinity of a Cisco Access Point, the recorded measurement data is automatically read out and securely transmitted within the hospital network. This is intended to give the treatment team an overview of the patient's state of health at all times, so that they no longer have to disturb stable patients by carrying out night-time checks, for example, and at the same time can identify even earlier whether someone needs additional help.

Large area rollout possible

Leitwert's vendor-independent system makes it possible to directly integrate medical wearables from different manufacturers so that the collected health data does not have to be sent to external systems of the device manufacturers. Instead, the data can be stored directly in the hospital without leaving the secure network. Thus, the hospital retains full transparency and control over patient data. This technology was developed in a multi-year development partnership between the Universitässpital Basel and Leitwert. The integration with Cisco infrastructure opens the possibility to roll out this application on a large scale in hospitals with Cisco infrastructure. "As part of our Country Digital Acceleration initiative, we are also supporting the Swiss healthcare sector with specific investments in digitization and the development of innovative solutions," says Dr. Garif Yalak, Head of Digital Transformation, Cisco Switzerland. "In doing so, we draw on our experience with over 17,000 healthcare organizations worldwide. We are also making a decisive contribution at the University Hospital Basel: as an overall solution, the Cisco network infrastructure and Cisco DNA Center are laying the foundation for the use of wearables."

The three project partners have already successfully implemented a prototype of the new solution. This is now being extensively tested in studies to ensure that the technology meets the high requirements of the healthcare sector. As soon as the products have the prescribed certifications, the system will be used in the treatment of patients at Basel University Hospital.

Source: Cisco

Plastic pollution is a major problem - all the more so because plastics are very complex in their composition. This is because a recent study identified more than 10,000 chemical substances that can be used in plastic production. As a result, plastics can contain a wide range of chemical substances. However, many of these chemicals perform the same function. But a lack of coordination between manufacturers means that plastics from different producers often have different chemical compositions for the same applications.

This diversity and complexity of plastic formulations brings with it various negative impacts and challenges, Empa, for example, says in a recent media communiqué. For example, scientists and various organizations have increasingly expressed concern about the negative effects on human health and ecosystems of many chemicals contained in plastics, which can be leached from the product during its lifetime.

Chemical diversity exacerbates plastic pollution problem

Cautiously optimistic

Sven O. Rimmelspacher, Managing Director of the South German CAQ software manufacturer Quality Miners GmbH, opened the Quality Mining Day on October 20, 2022. In his speech, he referred to the ability to change again and again. He experienced firsthand that this does not always mean a steep uphill climb: "In 2003, customers put us through the wringer and told us as hard as nails: you have to do something about your quality!" For Rimmelspacher, that was a decisive turning point. "We reinvented ourselves, completely turned around our understanding of quality and integrated this as a driving force in our solutions and partnership with our customers."

Fall down and get up quickly

Extreme sportsman Norman Bücher, saw his own thesis confirmed in the history of the Quality Miners: "When children start running, they fall down again and again, but get right back up and keep going. Falling down is part of life - even in our professional lives - it's only through this that we learn to rise above ourselves." Dr. Ing. Benedikt Sommerhoff, Head of Innovation & Transformation at DGQ also thinks it's "great to revise yourself. Failure is an opportunity." During the panel discussion, he spoke enthusiastically of how "experimentation has become more hopeful in Germany."

The fact that this outgrowing of oneself can also take on many a stylistic blossom was vividly demonstrated by bestselling author Prof. Dr. Ing. Lars Vollmer in his lecture to the eagerly listening audience as a "business theater". "Start-ups act intuitively on the market, that's what makes them successful. As they get older, they take the mistakes of the big companies as a model." Written and unwritten rules develop for processes and the way they work together. People sense these and behave in a system-intelligent way accordingly. "In meetings, therefore, they follow these rules - no matter how nonsensical or purposeful they actually are. Meetings become an end in themselves," says the speaker.

Identify the nature of the problem

All you really have to do is learn to distinguish between a complicated, predictable problem and a complex, surprising one. While the former can be solved in a causal, knowledge-based manner with a clean process and quality management system, the latter requires inventiveness and creativity outside of the regulations. "Whoever drives on two tracks in this sense creates room for success," Vollmer explains.

Thomas Metten, Team Leader Quality Service of Oventrop GmbH & Co. KG, could confirm this through his many years of experience. When Oventrop installed the first CAQ system of Quality Miners, which at that time still operated under the name of Pickert GmbH, in 2003, they believed that from now on they would have the quality of their production perfectly under control. "But that was just the beginning of the journey," says Metten. More than 60,000 inspection plans later, the company has undergone a far-reaching cultural change. In the meantime, not only production but also peripheral areas such as energy management have been firmly integrated into quality management.

Quality arises in the process

"We realized that even the energy manager really just wants to monitor the process," says the quality manager. "And linking energy management to the manufacturing processes is ultimately, as the current energy crisis confirms, enormously important." The goal is to have all processes standardized by 2023. "We have established key figures for everything, identify weak points already in the process and can intervene immediately. This means we know exactly where we stand. We can completely dispense with subsequent controls. If the process runs flawlessly, the end product is also flawless." Metten is firmly convinced that "quality is created in the process."

Dr.-Ing. Alexander Schloske, Senior Expert Quality at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation, was able to back this up with many practical examples from industry: "Focusing on the value-adding processes within the FMEA reduces trivialities and increases the significance." He sees a decisive success factor in making FMEA company- and goal-oriented.

Accordingly, what is true for Oventrop does not have to be equally true for all companies. In the panel discussion, Lars Vollmer stated, "Organic change is always an individual one, depending on the prerequisites of the company and its market conditions." Dr. Benedikt Sommerhoff added: "The situation in a software company is completely different from that of a cleaning service provider."

Meaningfulness creates value

For Sommerhoff, appreciation is the key to a working world that is focused on quality. "Only through appreciation do people find meaning in their work." According to Vollmer, however, this meaning does not have to be artificially imposed from the outside. It is lost when people are kept from working - and is simply there when they are allowed to solve tasks successfully and purposefully. Norman Bücher confirmed these statements in his presentation by explaining: "Only the question of "why" and thus the motives give goals a meaning. If you don't know why you're running, you won't master the big challenges." Harry Keller and Jonas Voss from the Quality Miners team continued this as a central point in their own presentation: "Quality management will only work if we have interdisciplinary units that know why they do something." According to the experts, a holistic approach with clear goals, clear communication, transparency and a project cockpit that can be used to steer things makes even complex projects successful.

The active exchange between practitioners of all stripes was the main focus of this technical congress. "We received enormously good feedback on the Quality Mining Day," said Tobias Brehm, Business Development Manager at Quality Miners. "After this success, we want to make this congress a permanent institution that will continue to dig deep for quality in the years to come."

Source: Quality Miners Ltd.

The Swiss Management Society (SMG) invited to its traditional forum for the 58th time on November 16, 2022. Of course, there was no lack of current topics at this event: The current geopolitical upheavals have ruthlessly shown how dependent our society has become on a steady influx of energy and goods, it was said. For Lukas Braunschweiler, President of SMG and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Tecan Group, the insights gained at the conference are clear: "The forum impressively demonstrated to us that we can only overcome the difficulties and challenges of our time by working together.

Dr. Detlef Trefzger: "Future scenarios of global trade".

The Corona crisis and the dislocations triggered by the war in Ukraine have thrown global supply chains out of sync. For Detlef Trefzger, this phenomenon, known as the "bullwhip" or whip effect, is just one aspect of why transportation costs will rise in the future. "In addition to a large pent-up demand for infrastructure renewal, it is above all the increasing demand for goods produced and transported in a climate-neutral manner that will have a significant impact on transport costs."

Jonas Dennler: "Mission Based Ecosystems - New Forms of Collaboration to Fulfill a Shared Vision."

Is it already five past twelve or five before twelve? Jonas Dennler, Global Head Sustainability GTM at SAP, fears that the 1.5 degree target of the Paris climate agreement cannot be achieved under the current premises. The example of Norway, where three-quarters of newly registered vehicles are already electric, proves how ambitious targets can be achieved. "Norway shows that it is time for a paradigm shift, away from the shareholder approach to the partnership approach of all interested parties. Because only together can ambitious goals be realized."

Kristine Svinicki: "Creating a global energy future".

In contrast to Europe, nuclear energy seems to be on the verge of something of a renaissance in the USA. For Kristine Svinicki, a TerraPower board member and former chairwoman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the key issue, in addition to improving the use of nuclear fuel, is to better align the electricity mix. "Storing heat generated by nuclear power in sodium containers enables downstream distributed production of electric power. This allows fluctuations in wind and solar energy to be efficiently absorbed," said the American nuclear engineer, explaining the approach.

Focus topic Energy: Renaissance of nuclear power?

1 cm3 of uranium contains the same energy as 1 ton of coal. For Prof. Dr. Annalisa Manera, nuclear energy is therefore a central element for a secure and clean supply. "Thanks to nuclear energy and hydropower, Switzerland's electricity production is now almost CO2-neutral," noted the professor of nuclear energy at ETH Zurich. Hans Hess, long-time president of Swissmem and now chairman of the board of Synhelion AG, sees the recent geopolitical upheavals as a salutary wake-up call that will lead to more innovation. According to Benedikt Loepfe, Director-EWZ Stadt Zürich, suppliers will have to focus more on consumer needs in the future. However, according to Maurice Dierick, member of Swissgrid's GL, this requires a "fractal-autonomous" system instead of the current top-down supply. Together with Monika Rühl, Chairwoman of the Executive Board of economiesuisse, the panelists agreed that a reliable electricity agreement with the EU was indispensable due to the uncertain situation. Monika Rühl also pointed out that the energy crisis was a rather European problem that could quickly develop into a competitive disadvantage.

Focus topic Cyber Security: Good faith as a risk

About 25,000 cases of cyberattacks on Swiss companies are reported each year. Florian Schütz, the federal government's delegate for cybersecurity, estimates that the dark room is quite a bit higher. "Internet attacks, as the Ukraine example shows, have become a geopolitical issue. Companies therefore need to take the protection of their systems seriously." For Steven Neubauer, former CEO of Comparis, which was hit hard by a cyber attack last year, it is now imperative that an experienced expert sits on the board of directors. Sandra Tobler, co-founder of Futurae Technologies, a company specializing in authentication solutions, commented on the problem that the gullibility that still prevails in Switzerland plays into the hands of fraudsters. A trusting error culture that promotes mutual learning could offer a remedy here. For Prof. Dr. Peter Müller, head of the Programming Methodology Group at ETH Zurich, the increase in home offices has led to a greater need for action with regard to the security of data transmission between employees and the company's systems. Here, the SCION solution developed by his institute could make a contribution to network security.

Prof. Dr. Dr. hc. Monika Bütler: "(When) Will Things Pick Up Again?"

After comparing her statements made a year ago on the occasion of the forum, the economist concluded that the rise in inflation feared due to the expansive monetary policy of the central banks has now arrived. However, the professor expressed confidence that the curve will soon flatten out. However, care must be taken to ensure that inflation does not hit the economically weakest too hard: "Inflation is always regressive and has a negative impact on disposable income," she warned.

Ron Pal: "Smallholder farmers and tech, the solution to solving the global food challenge"

470 million smallholder families worldwide produce about 40% of the food needed in developing countries. However, their production is often inefficient and small-scale. With the help of technology, the Swiss-Indian dual citizen wants to better connect producers with buyers. "By digitally connecting producers with buyers, we are creating a cooperative that benefits everyone," Ron Pal said, explaining his approach.

The Swiss Management Association

The Swiss Institute of Business Administration (BWI), which emerged in 1961 from the ETH
Management Gesellschaft (SMG) is the most important association of over 1000 leading
decision-makers in the Swiss economy. Through its network and platform function, the
SMG within the framework of its event as an impulse generator for entrepreneurs, executives from the CLevel-.
Management and board members who deal with strategic and operational management issues.
deal with.

www.smg.ch

What IT security managers expect from managed detection and response is shown by the results of interviews with responsible persons in the USA and Canada conducted by Bitdefender and the Enterprise Strategy Group in August 2022. Jörg von der Heydt, Regional Director DACH at Bitdefender comments on the study from a German perspective: "A very similar picture emerges from the interviews with German customers. The spectrum of requirements for MDR service providers is similarly broad, as is the motivation for considering an MDR service. What they all have in common, however, is the fact that skilled employees - i.e., IT security analysts and specialists - are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain and retain, while the number and complexity of attacks are continuously increasing. At the same time, the dependence on digital, i.e. IT-supported processes, is increasing. A dilemma that can probably only be solved by the increased use of managed security services." The following sections summarize the findings.

1. many IT teams start out planned in managed detection and response

MDR is not an emergency measure in many cases. Most of the respondents-57 percent-said that upcoming security audits prompted them to work with MDR vendors. Forty-seven % wanted to review and manage vulnerabilities. Only 39 % each acted specifically to defend against or mitigate an event, detect security-related incidents, or recover IT systems and digital processes after an attack. Thirty-seven %s were concerned with defending against a network intrusion or responding more extensively to a security event. Around one in three (33 %) hoped for help in pre-sorting and prioritizing daily alerts.

When asked about their motivation, it is clear how urgently the security executives surveyed need help to address both the scaling of IT security and the increasing attack surface and complexity of attacks. 41 % of study participants assumed that external security professionals could do a better job of cyber defense than their in-house teams. This is a remarkable finding, given that, after all, many companies participated that, given their size, should have their own qualified security team. Equally high was the proportion of respondents seeking a more scalable operational model for their IT security. 37 % implicitly admitted that they did not have the security tools and systems they needed to execute their cyber defense processes. However, the following motivations are also interesting:

• 29 % purchased MDR to purchase cyber insurance.
• 27 % were unable to commit the security and expertise needed for IT defense internally.
• 27 % did not see cybersecurity as their core competency and therefore outsourced it.
• 18 % demanded the protection even after hours.

2. cloud workload protection is a high priority, but all attack vectors require attention

On the one hand, the study participants are looking for help in protecting complex IT landscapes. But even for basic defense technologies, those responsible are not much less likely to hope for external help.

Customers expect an MDR provider to protect cloud applications (53 %), followed by public cloud infrastructure (50 %). Competence in assessing cloud workloads for vulnerability (46 %) and private cloud also play a role (43 %).

But traditional endpoint protection also remains important. Vulnerability analysis at the endpoint is what 43 % of respondents expect from an MDR service provider. Almost equally important are the protection of identity and access rights (41 %), endpoints (40 % ) and server workloads (39 %).

3. customer knowledge and customer proximity required

When selecting an MDR provider, customers demand an MDR provider that offers enterprise-specific services. Therefore, for 49 %, the ability to support existing security tools and technologies played a role. 39 % of study participants required industry-specific knowledge of the threat landscape in their industry. After all, more than one in five (21 %) also required a regional focus.

Accordingly, the companies want a close customer relationship in addition to the classic competence factors. 38 % consider better involvement in the defense (better engagement model) as a motive for considering other service providers. 29 % of the respondents indicated that for them the desire for a decided contact person could be a reason for switching MDR providers.

In general, companies prefer to work with an MDR provider for the long term. 61 % worked with their current partner for three or four years, 21 % even for five years or longer. However, many companies also employ multiple MDR providers: 46 % two, 34 % three or even more partners.

4. comprehensive competencies desired

Only a minority of security professionals surveyed expect full coverage of the attack surface by MDR service providers. Only 31 % require external service providers to monitor 76 to 100 % of the attack surface. However, 42 % require protection of 51 to 75 %. Key areas to be monitored include cloud workloads (67 %), the network (66 %) or DevOps including application security (56 %), and the Internet of Things (51 %).

5. MDR is a multifaceted task

If you ask IT managers about the results of an MDR commitment, one result initially seems less than spectacular: only 42 % were able to significantly reduce the rate of successful attacks on their company. Ultimately, however, even that is a remarkable result. After all, attacks to which the cybersecurity analysts of an MDR provider respond in a Security Operation Center (SOC) are usually of a more serious nature. Moreover, this may also be an indication that classic defense technologies such as anti-virus and endpoint protection offer a pedestal contribution against the opportunistic, automated and apparently numerous attacks that are still important. Another 42 % attested to a significantly improved security program. 77 %s nevertheless see MDR as a strategic operational partner. One in two benefited from the security experts' know-how.

But tangible effects also play a role: 38 % met compliance requirements with MDR, 38 % reduced IT security operational costs, and 32 % reduced their cyber insurance policy amounts. And last but not least, 35 % reduced the stress level of their internal security team.

Source: Bitdefender