Autor: Axel Winkelmann

Industry 4.0 is a political concept intended to help German manufacturing companies to exploit data potential. Today, maintenance activities are not proactive by current approaches. Decision support systems based on artificial intelligence allow a change here by even foresighted machine maintenance. However, AI’s opaque decision-making process represents a barrier for users, which endangers its effectiveness. Therefore, this article sheds light on both: the technological as well as social factor for the adoption of AI in Industry 4.0.

Due to increased market turbulence, firms not only are faced with the decision to use open source software, but also consider releasing their proprietary software under an open source license. Beside the appropriateness as an open source product this raises the question of how to profit from giving something away which then is available for free. This article contributes to this discussion by addressing possible open source business models with regard to the type of software.