digitization

Kinematic profile bending processes, such as three-roll profile bending, are known for their high flexibility with regard to the manufacturable contours. However, the low degree of automation and the predominantly manual quality control lead to a high personnel and time expenditure. The Mittelstand 4.0-Kompetenzzentrum Darmstadt and Herkules Wetzlar GmbH have carried out an implementation project to record and digitize the contour of curved profiles. With the results achieved, the added value through the implementation of sensor technology in production could be demonstrated.

Companies are increasingly acquiring new technologies that enable higher quality and efficiency. Every technology adoption is also a change process which affects the employees and their work and thus needs to be managed in an optimal way. This article is focused on the importance of goal definition during a change process. To facilitate this process, a checklist with 81 goals is presented. The checklist was developed based on scientific literature and practice-oriented tools and can be used by project teams to focus their activities on a holistic change process and track the goal progress.

Digitalization in logistics is progressing. Cyber-Physical logistics systems are emerging and opening up new opportunities in the management of logistics processes. The associated potentials for error-free and efficient logistics is enormous - but the potentials do not open up automatically, despite initial quick wins in KPIs. More than ever, executives play a key role on the path to excellence in logistics performance. They must learn to „proactively manage“ in an increasingly networked workplace. Which new possibilities the increasing digitization offers for this difficult development process and how these potentials can be exploited, is the subject of the following article.

Requirements for efficiency in manufacturing processes are steadily increasing in global competition. Through digitization and data analytics, not only efficiency but also flexibility and quality are to be increased. Cyber-physical systems, which use smart sensors and communication with manufacturing systems to independently identify, document and control process steps, can help solve this problem. These can be attached to many types of tools and thus also capture manual work processes. This article shows how a smart object with communication and positioning functionality accompanies a product to be manufactured through the manufacturing process and how e.g. manual screwing processes are recorded and analyzed by smart sensors.

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.

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.

Shaping intelligent production environments is one core element of Industry 4.0, but has progressed differently in the various branches. While concepts are well advanced in automotive, SMEs within textile industry still need assistance. As demands on individualization and responsiveness are increasing, a Smart Factory for textile SMEs must be designed. The futureTEX consortium therefor is working on shaping a textile Smart Factory and implements it prototypically by using demonstrators.

Digitization opens extensive opportunities to gather real time information, exchange them and use them for a variety of different purposes. In industry, the related developments are referred to as the transition to Industry 4.0. They relate to the workplace design as well as to the alignment of business strategies and the underlying business models.