Branche: Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

In the context of Industry 4.0, learning factories are important places for company-based learning. Studies show that they have continued to develop since their emergence and are no longer limited to vocational and academic education. This leads to the question of how much the concept of the learning factory represents an innovative approach to further training in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This article focuses on three selected learning factories relevant to continuing education that were analyzed using qualitative methods with regard to their concepts and cooperation. The findings are embedded in a theoretical framework that links the scientific discussion on learning locations and educational cooperation. The empirical findings from three learning factories illustrate relevant learning locations for continuing education in SMEs.

Industry 4.0 and Smart Factory have become a real source of hope and are the technological answer to some of the biggest challenges of our time: sustainable production, global interconnections, intelligent exchange of knowledge. This special issue discusses research questions relating to process improvement, artificial intelligence and factory software.

The impact of rapid technological change in a competitive global market is reaching small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) at an increasing rate; digitalization increases the interconnectedness among manufacturers, products and customers. Within this context, SME need to improve both their business processes and their technological capabilities in order to achieve internal and external sustainability goals, to be successful in the marketplace and to meet customer needs. This article discusses the opportunities of digitalization to improve sustainability by presenting two use cases from SME.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the next stage in the digitalization of the economy. The technology also offers great potential for small and mediusized enterprises (SMEs). However, many SMEs are still reluctant to introduce AI and are only at the beginning of digitization: only around one fifth of all SMEs in Germany have thoroughly digitized their own processes and departments. What does this mean for the use of AI in companies? What steps should businesses take now to take advantage of the opportunities AI offers? And what stumbling blocks should be avoided? This article presents practical implementation concepts for companies with different levels of digital maturity and AI deployment capabilities and shows the range of potential benefits of AI applications in different industries and with different value creation architectures in medium-sized companies.

Process modeling represents a challenge for small and medium-sized enterprises. In most cases, the added value is not recognized and is therefore rarely used. This article shows the potential of process modeling in order picking processes. The focus is on the documentation of the processes as well as their execution. Deficits in companies are pointed out and clarified, how the process modeling can solve these. Above all in the management of different process variants adaptive process modeling can show advantages. The resulting adaptive process models form the basis for making processes executable.

The topic Internet of Things (IoT) is omnipresent and has already found its way into many living rooms under the term Smart Home [1]. Be it lamps, heaters or the television set - everything is interconnected and easy to control from anywhere. The corresponding counterpart in manufacturing is Industry 4.0, sometimes named the Industrial Internet of Things. Companies and research institutions are working intensively on the possibilities offered by the so-called fourth industrial revolution. The forward-looking positioning of the German economy in international competition requires that the development and distribution of concepts and solutions in the context of Industry 4.0 be actively shaped by the industry itself and thereby to play a pioneering role in innovation [2]. Due to the rapid pace of development, it is essential for German companies to identify, develop and adapt new methods and technologies at an early stage and to transform them into marketable solutions.