Logistics Platforms as Drivers for Smart Ecosystems

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) offers new opportunities for organizational knowledge management, particularly when it comes to learning processes at the interface between explicit, firm-specific, and tacit knowledge. Its use is therefore of particular interest for application areas such as industrial maintenance. Based on a mechanical engineering case study, this article demonstrates that augmenting both processes and employees with GenAI requires AI literacy combined with professional skills.

Can artificial intelligence be used to assess the validity and credibility of simulation models and data for production and logistics? And what requirements must AI assistance meet to effectively support experts in verification and validation while simultaneously safeguarding their competence? In an online survey, simulation experts were asked regarding their expectations and needs.

Foundation models are increasingly changing the way robots are used in industry. Instead of writing complex programs line by line, programmers will soon be able to collaborate more closely with AI systems, describe tasks, and review generated solutions. This shifts their role from purely generating code to conceptual, supervisory, and validation activities. This article highlights the new possibilities that large AI models create for robot programming and the changes they entail for work and required skills in industrial practice.

Is it sufficient to train employees in the use of AI tools, or does the AI organization require an entirely new set of competencies? This paper introduces a digital enablement model comprising three competency dimensions and demonstrates, through an upskilling program implemented at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO, how organizations can sustainably bridge the AI adoption gap.

Certification for human-centered AI is becoming increasingly important—as a source of competitive differentiation, a response to regulatory expectations, and a mechanism for fostering human-centered work environments. But how can organizations determine whether the underlying requirements are truly embedded in practice? Drawing on expert interviews from established certification domains, this paper shows that the decisive question is answered not during the audit itself, but in the period between audit cycles. Ultimately, it is not the certificate that matters, but the commitment of organizational leadership and the organization as a whole to engage seriously in the certification process and its continuous implementation.

Industrial supply chains must repeatedly reconfigure sourcing strategies in response to disruptions, yet supplier capability information remains heterogeneous and difficult to operationalize. Existing research addresses supplier selection, simulation, and interoperability standards separately, treating discovery, evaluation, and optimization as disconnected steps requiring manual data transformation. This paper presents a framework for a data-driven industrial platform integrating three components: Asset Administration Shell-based supplier profiles structured by an Actor-Service ontology for semantic discovery, automatic discrete-event simulation model generation from layout data for performance evaluation, and KPI-driven configuration using optimization algorithms. The main contributions are an end-to-end interoperable workflow, a two-tier supplier profile concept separating semantic descriptions from simulation parameters, and a standardized KPI interface maintaining consistency ...