Guidelines for Drive Technology 4.0 – Trends for Digitalization of product, production and supply chain

The digital transformation continues to pose major challenges for production industry as well as the mechanical and plant engineering sector, which are being accepted and mastered by the companies to varying degrees. The landscape of different businesses ranges from companies with firmly established Industrie 4.0 competencies to newcomers that are at the beginning of the transformation process. This discrepancy is also reflected in an industry sector that is characterized by great heterogeneity in product structure and value chains: drive technology. In order to provide these companies with the specific tools they need to implement Industrie 4.0, the VDMA and the wbk Institute of Production Science at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have designed the guidelines for Drive Technology 4.0, a modular toolbox in the dimensions of product, production and supply chain.

The guidelines are intended to support companies of the drive technology sector – regardless of size, structure or product portfolio – in implementing Industrie 4.0 and is aimed at both newcomers and experts in the field of digitalization. They are intended to provide companies with a methodology for uncovering competencies and potentials within a suitable framework and using these to develop new approaches and concrete projects in the context of Industrie 4.0. The methodology and the accompanying workshop concept were tested in practical application and iteratively optimized in expert interviews with leading companies of the industry sector, an online survey of the members of the VDMA Power Transmission Engineering association, and in three pilot workshops at Neugart GmbH, Eich Rollenlager GmbH, and SEW-EURODRIVE GmbH & Co. KG.

As an accompanying offer for the fast and practical implementation of the guidelines, the wbk Institute of Production Science and the VDMA are now offering interested companies a joint consulting service. The implementation support serves the company-specific classification of existing Industrie 4.0 competencies as well as the identification and concretization of new digitalization potentials in the dimensions of product, production and supply chain. Further information about the consulting service can be found here.

Are you interested in individual support for implementing Industrie 4.0 in your company?

Please contact Philipp Gönnheimer or Felix Wirth.