Autor: Mario Kleindienst

The term Industry 4.0 has changed from a fashionable issue to a serious research and future-topic in industrial production. Research organisations work on sophisticated technologies and concepts to implement this fourth industrial revolution, research grants are provided generously and model factories get decorated. However, many companies still cannot understand the term industry 4.0 and the related consequences on their own business. Especially small and medium sized enterprises have not understood the benefits. For that reason the currently existing learning factory at the institute of industrial management and innovation research at Graz University of Technology is enlarged to an industry 4.0 learning factory. The concept behind is the object of this article.

At present, the industry has to face various challenges due to the needs of customers for individualized products and the related increasing number of product variants. Furthermore, the increasing complexity of the value added process and the demographic change with the related increasing average age of the employees as well as the growing shortage of skilled professionals negatively influence the situation. This article deals with assistance systems as a potential tool to meet these new demands and demonstrates successful implementations of these systems that have been already realized.