Industrie 4.0

The importance of efficient logistics as a key success factor for companies is well known. Efficient logistics processes can help to gain competitive advantage and to secure market positions of companies. The supplier industry is not exempt from this trend taking responsibility of diverse activities for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) in providing ready modules and systems. However, complex supply chains cause high logistics costs. As various supply concepts are possible for parts and materials produced in upstream stages of the supply chain, each of these concepts entail differing costs. The identification of an economically optimal supply concept through comparison and evaluation of alternatives is therefore of strategic importance. The article demonstrates the use of the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) concept for this purpose.

Today’s in-house training faces the challenge an increasing demand for work expertise against the background of a continuing reduction of staff. This paper describes how companies can meet these challenges supported by a technology-enhanced approach. A central part of the solution is an intelligent-adaptive learning system that allows employees to create learning media while solving operational challenges and, at a later time to access these media, adapted to their individual needs. The article outlines the main human, technical and organizational requirements that an integration of such an adaptive digital learning and assistance system into a company faces.

As the digitization of production processes advances, it influences many areas. In addition to the intra corporate structures and inter enterprise supply chains, it even has an impact on social structures. The progress includes the whole range of changes from the digitization of production processes to their data-driven optimization using intelligent feedback processes. In the end it will result in the combination of the real world with the digital world. To build up this digitization of the value chains, the human relations departments, the forms of communication and cooperation as well as the process management have to change. But to be successful on the way of digitization, new skills are necessary. To obtain these skills, the forms and techniques of the qualification acquisition need to be adapted.

Industrial work 4.0 challenges workers due to ambiguity, self-organization, and interconnec-tedness. To qualify workers to successfully cope with these challenges, this article introduces the software-based situational learning factory that is completed like a flight simulator. By playing these so called serious games that simulate situations on the shop floor of varying complexity, employees gain experiential knowledge and improve their IT-skills.

Industry 4.0 not only changes products, processes and work organisation, but also the understanding of leadership. Manager in future are visionaries, analysts and mentors who develop the strategy and new business models, designer and moderators for virtual and intercultural teams, self-reflected personalities..

The article deals with competences for the implementation of the Industrial Internet whose further development is rather open. Statements on competences are made in the context of extreme scenarios. Concrete requirements depend on combinations of technology and organization which companies choose. So, an - supported - adaptable continuing training is important in which employees learn to carry out changing tasks in the actual work process. The article points to training forms which support competence development for digitalization of industry.

The increase of complexity in the field of production due to “Industrie 4.0” causes also a rapid increase of the complexity of tasks on the shopfloor level. Thus, efficient methods for the systematic identification of the competence deficits of the employees as well as new forms of knowledge management for an adequate administration of knowledge have to be established.

The requirements of industrial production have drastically changed in the past. Mass production has been the predominant approach for decades, but there is a growing demand for individualized goods. In particular, small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) deal with small lot sizes and even single-item production. These companies have very demanding requirements for robot deployment. Programming robots must be time efficient and not require specific expertise in robotics, so that shop floor workers can use them. In this article, we introduce a knowledge-based approach to address these issues.

Future factories in digitized industries will require highly versatile automation systems. Seamless human-robot collaboration, utilizing the strengths of both, combined with advanced machine perception and automated planning are key factors for success in a world of “mass customized” products and increasingly faster product changes. Two examples, in welding and assembly, show advanced planning, sensing and human-robot collaboration technologies and discuss their benefits.

In hardly any other sector have the production conditions changed so rapidly in recent years as they have in the automotive industry: An increasing variety of models, greater variety, greater segmentation and the increasingly international nature of automobile production require efficient supplier plants with greater production depth. Suppliers who want to compete therefore have to continuously and flexibly adapt their processes to the dynamics of the major manufacturers. At the forefront of this is the company IT: From this it is expected that more and more formerly analogous processes will be reproduced digitally. But digitization is only possible with great knowledge of the industry and individually tailored solutions.