Design

Innovative digital and AI solutions for more energy-efficient production can decisively contribute to the environmental impact and competitiveness of companies, especially in the manufacturing industry. Requirements for the functionality and implementation of these solutions are complex and diverse; multiple stakeholders need to be addressed when eliciting requirements and various technology and business aspects have to be considered. This article presents a procedure for requirements elicitation for energy efficiency digitalization and AI projects.

Circular Economy is considered one of the most promising concepts on the way to a more sustainable economy. Expectations of a responsible corporate orientation are rising: This is shown by a recent ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court, which demands that Germany must be more ambitious in its climate goals [1]. The EU Green Deal envisages climate neutrality by 2050 and the “Circular Economy Action Plan” calls for more effective use of resources and reserves [2]. This article describes a method that companies can use to develop ideas for circular business models.

The digitalization in sustainability management and the creation of a consistent database for sustainability data can significantly support companies in meeting increasing sustainability requirements and transparency regarding the sustainability performance. This paper presents a service-oriented approach for the development of a platform for data-driven sustainability management in manufacturing companies.

A considerable part of global greenhouse gas emissions is caused in the industrial sector. Its digitialization is often seen as a means to increase sustainability. At the same time, ecological and social risks emerge. Their exploration is still in its infancy, however, previous findings point out multiple challenges. These must be conceptually taken into account in order to realize a sustainable industry 4.0. Building on a literature analysis, the following contribution presents current developments in research, industry, and policy. We shed light on a number of selected approaches, which aim at a sustainable industry 4.0. Finally, practical design options are outlined.

The future of shop floor management (SFM) lies in its digitization. The visualization of key performance indicators is already supported by various providers or set up by companies themselves to save time. But particularly valuable in SFM is the sustainable problem solving, which contains the knowledge of the employees in text. Therefore, approaches from Natural Language Processing (NLP) are applied to these text data to realize assistance functions. This article provides situation-specific implementation strategies.

Managers are still facing significant challenges in implementing Industry 4.0 technologies and many companies have not gone beyond their initial Industry 4.0 lighthouse project to date. In the midst of this ongoing transformation, the European Commission published a white paper in January 2021 dealing with the “Industry 5.0 concept”. This paper investigates the term “Industry 5.0” with regard to the contribution of the European Commission and illustrates the connection with current Industry 4.0 initiatives.

The complexity of manual activities in different areas of a company is increasing due to smaller batch sizes, higher product variants and shorter product life cycles. The balanced provision of information ensures shorter training times, higher acceptance among employees and can be used directly at the workplace. For system implementation, organizational factors must also be considered in accordance of a socio-technical system design.