Training

In recent years, learning factories have evolved into key experimental environments in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In addition to their role as training centers for skilled workers, they also serve as real-world research laboratories. This issue of Industry 4.0 Science examines learning factories as venues for exploring new approaches and technologies—whether digital assistants, cobots, serious games, or digital twins.

Digitalization opens up new forms of operational training. A growing focus is on smart services, which allow for proactive engagement with customer demands and empower businesses in times of digitalization. While traditional learning environments are rarely tailored toward individual needs, smart services offer new opportunities. Decentralization, previously only a utopic vision, is becoming the reality now.

Researchers and decision-makers in global logistics are constantly communicating and co-operating across disciplinary and cultural borders. Therefore, doctoral candidates in logistics need to learn and practice skills to cope with multi-dimensional diversity in their working environment. We present a dynamically evolving structured doctoral training programme offered to early stage researchers who are affiliated with the International Graduate School for Dynamics in Logistics in the Research Cluster LogDynamics at the University of Bremen.

Demographic trends have direct impact on production and logistics. They affect adversely both the work in the production hall and the company’s profit. To cope with these threats investment in the lower rank of management is necessary. The following article lines out how companies train their technicians and shift managers for the challenges of demographic change, which are in detail staff growing older, decreasing qualifications of new employees and higher staff turnover.

Given the current and anticipated future economic development in China, annual growth rates around 10 % and the opening of the Chinese market to logistics services, foreign logistics service providers are expecting annual growth of 30 % in this particularly lucrative market segment. One of the greatest challenges is the lack of sufficiently qualified Chinese logistics experts. This presents foreign research organizations and enterprises an opportunity to become active in China.