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Comparison and evaluation from research findings of 28 process models considering digitalization measures are presented. Furthermore, our own-developed process model, based upon interviews with professional managers, is reported. Our process model enables managers to deal with technology coming along with industry 4.0, such as the implementation of socio-technologies.

Opportunities arising from new technologies like smart mobile devices and augmented reality have a huge impact on the manufacturing industry but are not taken advantage of when it comes to productivity analysis. As a consequence productivity analyses are rarely used and companies cannot benefit from a systematic approach to tackle improvement processes. This paper presents a productivity analysis method that uses a web-based application for data acquisition and is designed in a way that enables production staff to perform analyses on their own.

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.

Digitization and related technologies extend the possibility of work design. As companies face the challenge of being able to respond to changing market conditions with agility, digital technologies are creating new ways to increase work flexibility in response to the need for better employee work-life balance. It is important to consider both the needs and requirements of employees and companies and to find satisfactory solutions for both sides. The present article describes how flexible work design is currently used in companies and how the technologies of digitization can be classified and brought together. Based on a structured literature analysis on the state of the art of the potential of flexible work, the article shows the synergy effects of cyber-physical systems, cloud computing and the Internet of Things as the basis for a consensual solution of the needs of companies and their employees.

In order to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in the field of large-scale plant construction, the requirements relevant for construction site logistics planning as well as the planning and controlling of logistics processes in large-scale plant construction using digital models are being investigated within the framework of the research project BIMLog. In this paper, the planning-relevant requirements and their description are presented in an ontology as the basis of a digital planning.

Graduates in logistics management find themselves in working environments characterised by developments in digitalisation, automation and decentralisation. These trends are often summarised as “Logistics 4.0” when they take place in the field of logistics. In order to prepare students for these trends before they leave their university, laboratories equipped with the appropriate technologies could be used. This article describes how such a laboratory could be set up and what components it could consist of.

The digitalisation of the working world leads to the need and at the same time to the possibility of qualifying employees in a context-oriented, individual and process-oriented way. The challenge in this context is the target-oriented and coordinated use of different learning forms and systems. The present contribution provides an approach for combining content-related and structural gamification in e-learning and the increase of motivation for e-learning as well as knowledge consolidation through mobile learning by means of a game application tailored to the sector of application. To this end, the need to adapt education to digital change is described at the beginning, the pillars of the envisaged concept (gamification, e-learning and mobile learning) are classified, an implementation of the application case of the maintenance of wind turbines is delivered and, finally, the results of the evaluation as well as the added value of this contribution are discussed.

In Germany, Big-Data is frequently associated with Industry 4.0. With regard to China, some publications focused upon the legal and ethical issues of the so-called social credit system, but offered little overview concerning the general aspects of Big-Data. This paper aims to deliver a more comprehensive outline of the Big-Data developments, which have been observed for the last seven years in China. In particular, the contribution delineates the application scenarios and governmental politics related to Big-Data and further deepens the insights by providing two concise case studies, one on mechanical engineering manufacturers and the other on Big-Data activities in the province of Guizhou. At the economic level, this article compares the recent Big-Data revenues in Germany and China.

In a previous approach of Lager et al. [1], the development of knowledge, competence and role profiles of employee groups in the course of industry 4.0 was studied. Based on that, the role of the overlapping focus IT is to be examined more closely and the analysis is extended to the tactical level using the example of production planning. In addition, the effects of the need for increased IT competence in all areas of the manufacturing industry on the erosion of current role profile boundaries are presented.

In many industries, the transformation of value creation is accelerating as a result of the fundamental change from pipelines business to platform business. For taking part in the new platform business companies need to develop innovative business models. The framework developed for designing digital platforms includes the type of value contribution (what?), the actors involved (who?), the reason for the value contribution (why?) and the way of value creation (how?). The design hints derived from the framework are subsequently used to develop B2B platforms to illustrate their relevance and impact.