Autor: Angelika C. Bullinger-Hoffmann

Maintenance is an important factor for the effectiveness of production processes. As the degree of automation and interoperation of production equipment is increasing, the significance of equipment availability and thus of maintenance is increasing. At the moment, maintenance and service engineers spend a lot of time in retrieving and preparing information. In many cases the data of business information systems is not or only partly available to maintenance engineers. In the future, resource-cockpits on mobile devices will provide maintenance and service engineers with all necessary information in situ. This will be realised interactively, with little effort and in the right context.

Due to demographic change, fundamental transformations in economy and society can be identified in Germany and other European countries. The requirements on companies regarding increasing flexibility and innovation skills proceed parallel to demographic change. Hence, research on demographics in innovative working environments can deal with these changes in positive ways. The article describes two design tools: first the modular age explorer MAX which makes demographic change perceptible for young people and second flexible, generation-heterogeneous organizations which provide both innovation and value potential. These tools enable generation-heterogeneous communication and work systems for the researchers and all departments.