The Core Principles of the Digital Twin

Sustainability-enhancing transformation processes are necessary in all sectors if we are to remain within planetary boundaries. This also applies to the industrial sector as a significant emitter of greenhouse gases. Employees need new competencies to master this complex task of industrial transformation. These range from CO2 equivalents accounting to the development and evaluation of transformation scenarios, including technical measures. The learning module developed here addresses these competency requirements and uses the example of the ETA factory to show how a competency-oriented learning module for industrial transformation can be structured. It essentially comprises four phases: data collection and CO2 equivalents accounting, cause analysis, development of measures and evaluation of measures.

The fischertechnik® Learning Factory 4.0 has proven to be a suitable experimental environment for testing digital twins. Depending on the targeted maturity stage, the functions of a digital twin range from status monitoring and forecasting to the operational control of production and logistics systems. To systematically classify these functions, this article presents a maturity model that serves as a framework for the development of a digital twin. Building on this, selected use cases are implemented in a test and development environment based on a system architecture with multi-layered logic structure. These initial implementations serve to highlight application purposes, relevant methods, and typical challenges and potentials in the transfer to real factory environments.

Artificial intelligence (AI) offers significant potential to enhance industrial quality control, yet successful implementation requires careful consideration of ethical and human factors. This article examines how automated surface inspection systems can be deployed to augment human capabilities while ensuring ethical integration into workflows. Through design science research, twelve stakeholders from six organizations across three continents are interviewed and twelve sociotechnical design requirements are derived. These are organized into pre-implementation and implementation/operation phases, addressing human agency, employee participation, and responsible knowledge management. Key findings include the critical importance of meaningful employee participation during pre-implementation, and maintaining human agency through experiential learning, building on existing expertise. This research contributes to ethical AI workplace implementation by providing guidelines that preserve human ...

Artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance smart assembly by predicting human motion and adapting workplace design. Using probabilistic models such as Gaussian Mixture Models (GMMs), AI systems anticipate operator actions to improve coordination with robots. However, these predictive systems raise ethical concerns related to safety, fairness, and privacy under the EU AI Act, which classifies them as high-risk. This paper presents a conceptual method integrating probabilistic motion modeling with ethical evaluation via Z-Inspection®. An industrial case study using the Smart Work Assistant (SWA) demonstrates how multimodal sensing (motion, gaze) and interpretable models enable anticipatory assistance. The approach moves from ethics evaluation to ethics-informed work design, yielding transferable principles and a configurable assessment matrix that supports compliance-by-design in collaborative assembly.