Digitalisierung

Digitization creates fascinating opportunities. However, we have to recognize that Germany needs more than the technology leadership in order to succeed in the long term. We must be able to transform the technology leadership we take in the field of industry 4.0 for example into added value, entrepreneurial success and employment. Essential levers to success are data based services, business models, positioning in platform economy, foundation culture, shaping the digitized working environment and, last but not least, Systems Engineering. In any case, our success will be a matter of strategic operation and systemic thinking and acting.

Technicians and service operators in machine and plant engineering need more and more information to assemble the more complex products. Additional effort is necessary, when technicians have to document their work progress or report problems. One reason for this is that production is generally not integrated into the digital flow of information. Case studies from the industry show the high potential of innovative software solutions by integrating the production perfectly into the digital information flow.

In the course of digitization, the complexity and instability of business networks are considerably increasing. This has also serious effects on intralogistics. Under VUCA conditions, intralogistic systems develop into open, decentralized and self-organization networks of information-processing units. They adapt to the dynamic changes of their environment, by increasing their inner and outer varieties in a preventive manner. Digital technologies are not in a position to adequately control non-deterministic logistic systems; this task is essentially left to the working man. In order to overcome the challenges, appropriate models and methods of preventive work design are developed in the PREVILOG project. The paper presents cybernetic basics and preventive work design principles.

One ear on the phone while checking e-mails and revising a text at the same time - that’s life today in many offices all over the world. Constant digital change makes great demands of companies and their staff. People are expected to be available 24/7 while multi-tasking and coping with high noise levels in open-plan offices as well as dealing with constant disruptions in the work process. Together with working on-call or on-demand, these are just some of the challenges and tasks that have to be managed. How can staff continue to be efficient and productive despite all these and more changes to the working world? Are companies prepared for the demands of the digital age? Which adjustments will they have to make to protect staff from excessive demands on the one hand, while boosting efficiency and productivity on the other?

Success factors that had long driven China’s economic boom have lost their legitimacy gradually. The emergence of the competitive indigenous technology houses in IT, telecommunications and software industries in the past two decades has made China’s industrial digitalisation feasible, which the nation would urgently need to base its further growth more on technology and innovation. Consequently, China’s economic performance would become more solid and sustainable. Internet+ predicts the general direction of digitalisation in China’s industries and represents the concept that is currently enthusiastically debated by the economists, politicians and in the media. The integration of information technology with other manufacturing industries is particularly emphasised in this context. The article examines the background and the terminology, takes a look at the market model and some technical issues of Internet+. A case study accompanies the “excursion” to China, in order to give ...

Current advances result in increasingly complex production programs. Through combination of additive manufacturing and Industry 4.0, new elements can be formed and - as a whole - enable to economically manufacture the above mentioned programs. The Bionic Smart Factory 4.0 provides a framework, structuring them in terms of relation and interaction. Their development and implementation is being promoted through their evaluation against the determinants of complex production programs.

With the industrial internet the digitization of communication processes receives a new impulse. By application of social networks within firms, the collaboration of and knowledge transfer between workers can be supported and rationalized. This paper focuses on Enterprise Social Networks and discusses the challenges and opportunities when implementing these digital communication tools. On basis of a real world case study we illustrate some good practices.

Due to high safety requirements of the aviation industry, the appraisal and documentation of all repair processes, including the final certification of the affected components play a central role. The documentation of all parts of the workflow including materials and machine process parameters as well as the obtained test results leads to inefficient processing times and high costs. To address this problem, Lufthansa Technik AG Hamburg launched the project “Installation of a plenum production” and illustrates how an extensive digitalization and automation of the underlying processes can lead to a reduction in processing time of up to 70%.