Training

Digital transformation is a crucial factor for the competitiveness of companies. This article explores obstacles and their interrelationships in establishing digital business models in medium-sized family businesses as well as initial approaches to overcoming these obstacles.

Makerspaces foster creativity, collaborative work and craftsmanship. Anyone interested can use tools, machines and technologies to realize their own projects and develop their technical skills in the process. They also provide an inspiring environment where people with different backgrounds and expertise come together to learn, experiment and support each other. The following article discusses the importance, features and equipment of makerspaces, in particular the Innovation Laboratory Digitalization, which promotes interdisciplinary work at the Trier University of Applied Sciences and serves as an interface to the specialized labs. In addition, the process of prototyping is described using several application examples.

This paper deals with the concept of the Industrial Metaverse and its potential impact on the manufacturing industry. First, the possibilities of the Industrial Metaverse are explained in general and then possible resulting functionalities for production technology along the life cycle are presented. For the two topics "Synthetic Data Generation" and "Virtual Qualification" the implications of the Industrial Metaverse are considered more concretely.

The assertion “Our people are what set us apart from our rivals” is a common statement made by nearly every company, highlighting the significance of their people as the most valuable asset. Similarly, a corporate culture emphasizing risk awareness and learning from experiences has played a key role in shaping supply chain resilience (SCRES) amidst competitive dynamics in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Employee engagement, communication, and collaboration, as dimensions of SC risk awareness, determine the effectiveness of firms’ cultures in handling large-scale disruptions with robustness and agility. Additionally, the COVID-19 crisis has had a positive impact on firms’ learning orientation. The crucial necessity of digital supply chain (SC) transformation to enhance SCRES under pandemic conditions has further reinforced the need for dynamic adaptation and reconfiguration of firms’ culture and employee skillsets through digital upskilling.