Internet of Things

The introduction of digital technologies will provide completely new possibilities for the design and operation of supply chains in the future. A decisive step should be the decentralization of structures and processes inside firms which also shows effect on the cooperation between companies. It finally offers the opportunity to solve long-standing problems of supply chain management. When are companies ready to take this step? The technologies are.

The complex systems in the digitized industry are increasingly connected and generate heterogeneous data. Fog Computing aims to enable efficient data processing in the Internet of Things (IoT), however, its future development is uncertain. The question is, what the future of IoT in Germany’s manufacturing industry will look like, which role fog computing will play in it and what implications will arise for the digital working environment. The results of an interdisciplinary scenario process provide insights into possible future scenarios.

Due to an increased product variety, the need for flexibly configured assembly systems is steadily growing. In contrast to classic assembly lines with predominantly rigid conveyor technology, efficient, individual assembly routes with cycle-independent processing times are implemented in a dynamically interconnected assembly system using intelligent control and AGVs. This article presents the most important factors for the IT-related implementation of a dynamically interconnected assembly system and shows which existing standards from the field of Industry 4.0 can be used for this purpose.

The level of networking and complexity in intelligent manufacturing is constantly increasing. As a result, the demands on employees are growing, especially due to changing work tasks. In addition, the existing lack of skilled workers leads to bottlenecks. The use of remote technologies opens up new opportunities for collaboration, especially in maintenance. Considering the challenges of industrial maintenance, to what extent can remote technologies be used to efficiently meet these demands? This article provides an overview of the remote technologies currently used and discussed in practice and research. In addition, it shows which prerequisites must be created for an effective application of the technologies.

The article addresses serverless computing and the criteria a serverless architecture must meet. Serverless computing allows developers to deploy applications as a set of functions without worrying about the underlying IT-infrastructure. This software paradigm is then used to implement a global IoT platform for numerous IoT devices in the AWS cloud.

Due to the advancing digitalization of business sectors and increasing competitive pressures, industrial companies are forced to promote their own digital transformation to sustain on the market. Here, the literature regards the CFO as a key corporate function to induct digitization initiatives within organizations. The blockchain technology, due to its features of transparency, immutability and cryptography combined with its ability to coordinate data flows of e. g. the IoT or AI, constitutes a suitable instrument for the CFO to meet the requirements of the Industry 4.0. The results are improvements of business processes in regard to efficiency and automation, a relocation of the CFO’s strategic role, improvements of CFO-relevant KPIs through integrating machines into payment networks as well as the emergence of integrated business ecosystems facilitating new forms of inter-organizational collaboration.