Autor: Luise Weißflog

With industry 4.0 technologies the new demands on production companies can be made manageable. The most common issue is the lack of transparency and efficient structure in intralogistics processes. In various projects of the Mittelstand 4.0 Kompetenzzentrum Chemnitz the use of Auto-ID and assistance systems has shown how this deficiency can be remedied. In one of these a local company improves its transparency and reduced the intralogistic search effort by 20 %.

The automatic identification of workpieces is a compulsory step towards the Digital Twin and for a consistent life cycle file of products. Because different technologies exist, companies often face the challenge to find the right solution which meets their requirements. Especially the high level of prominence of some technologies lead to premature decisions without a profound selection process. This in turn might lead to sub-optimal solutions in the end. In order to support especially industrial companies in this process, a selection algorithm for Auto-ID technologies was developed as part of an industrial project at the department Factory Planning and Factory Management of TU Chemnitz. The selection process has been implemented in a Microsoft Excel-based tool.

Industry 4.0 and digitalisation are also increasingly finding their way into everyday production processes in SMEs. The focus is e. g. on assistance systems that support employees in their work. Resulting communication is significantly facilitated and at the same time the required information is available at the appropriate workplace at the right time. The ‘Mittelstand 4.0 Kompetenzzentrum Chemnitz‘ has dedicated itself to this challenge together with two SMEs.