Typeset

Digitalization is changing manufacturing substantially. The design of user interfaces in the digitalized production environment is of utmost importance. In this article, potential combinations of approaches to human-machine interaction are shown and examples of applications are presented. Multimodal user interfaces offer a high degree of immersion. As a result, approaches of (among others) VR-, gesture- and speech-based types of interaction are compared with the dialogue principles and their suitability in practice as work and learning support for employees is presented.

The digital twin has moved into the focus of manufacturing companies and has been identified by Gartner as a key technology [1]. In the automotive industry, VW uses the digital twin in the cloud to plan, control and optimize production at all 122 locations in the future [2]. The digital twin is also the basis and an integral part of new, digital business models and the digitization of production companies. This article gives an overview of the current state of the art and describes a flexible reference model for planning and optimizing production systems based on the digital twin. The focus is on the one hand on the optimization of static layouts and material flows and on the other hand on the optimization of dynamic material flows and the temporal organization of processes.

When selecting a new refrigerator, energy efficiency is a decisive selection criterion. However, in the strategic and tactical planning of value-added networks, this is not yet the case. The E²-Design-toolbox enables energy efficiency to be considered in the planning process of production and logistics networks, in addition to the classic performance and cost variables. The early integration allows to draw on the overall potential. This paper presents the underlying energy data, the optimization modules, and the user’s perspective.

Remanufacturing, previously characterized by manual and cost-intensive processes, is a critical step on the way to a resource-efficient circular economy. Industry and research agree that the introduction of Industry 4.0 technologies is the key to the development of automated and economical remanufacturing systems. Based on a systematic literature review, this paper is dedicated to the analysis of promising Industry 4.0 approaches with a focus on the overall process as well as the sub-processes of disassembly and inspection. The results suggest that there is a need for additional knowledge, experience and research in the development and real demonstration of the approaches and their transferability to broader application fields.

Due to rising quality requirements in the metalworking industry, parts drying has been gaining significance, leading to the increasing importance of reducing the energy consumption of drying processes. Therefore, the LoTuS project investigates different approaches to increase drying efficiency. Along with alternative drying technologies, process digitization is employed to provide sufficient transparency for part-specific drying. Using sensor data, artificial intelligence is utilized for process monitoring. Peak demand is further reduced by implementing load management techniques.

Carbon footprints are a widely discussed topic impacting the individuals as well as companies. A company can be transparent in their actions, by publishing a carbon footprint. These footprints can be calculated for a single product or the whole company. However, there is a variety of different carbon footprint standards. The internationally most recognized ones are the publicly available specification 2050, Greenhouse Gas protocol (2011) and ISO 14067. This paper compares the standards and gives a recommendation for the application of product carbon footprints.

Smart Factory is the vision of a production environment in which manufacturing plants and logistics systems organize themselves as far as possible without human intervention. The article describes a project, at the start of which none of the participants created a relation to “Smart Factory” or “Industry 4.0”. Rather, the objective was to drastically reduce the current delivery time of 6-8 weeks. The result is a completely digitized business process from order creation, product development, design, manufacturing as well as processing for “batch size 1” with a reduction in lead time to less than 10 %.

A successful digital transformation for attaining Industry 4.0, is a crucial success criterion for many companies today. The ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic has shown the need for digitalization in companies and has further accelerated this development. However, these times, companies are confronted with an uncertain order and profit situation. Thus, they need to allocate their investments purposefully. Evaluating the digital maturity by using a profound indicator system is therefore a sound basis for decision making. This paper develops such a sociotechnical KPI model along the dimensions “Strategy and Organizational Leadership”, “Digital Skills/Human Capital” as well as “Smart Process/Operations”. In the future, this model can be used for determining the digital maturity and thus, it can be applied for allocating digitalization investments.

The construction industry has taken first steps towards digitalized processes with the use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) systems and the modelling of processes. However, there are few successful examples of IT-supported processes in the largely manual construction phase. This article provides insights from a practical study, which examined the implementation of a workflow management system as a potential next step.

This paper describes an analysis and design method for knowledge management integrating man and machine in the age of the 4th Industrial revolution (Industry 4.0). Digitized work p rocesses require employees in an Industry 4.0 environment to have the competence to adequately deal with fluid situations on the basis of their own knowledge and the ability to place this knowledge in situation-specific contexts. To this end, the development of a comprehensive understanding of processes is elementary.