Enlarge: The digital factory of the DHBW Mosbach (partial cut-out)

What were the challenges to be solved and what specific benefits were achieved?

The "Digital Transformation" will substantially change business - the implementation of the concepts of Industrie 4.0 is not a “can”, but a “must” for all manufacturing companies, especially the SMEs. To pro-actively address the resulting profiles of the engineers of the future, we need new competence-oriented concepts – didactically, with regards to content and organizationally.

The DHBW Mosbach has established an interdisciplinary competence center “Production and Information Management” which is embedded in a future-oriented teaching context.

"Interdisciplinary process knowledge is a crucial factor for the engineer of the future. In our digital factory we model and implement the whole process from order creation through the complete assembly and quality assurance to logistics and delivery, together with the information flow. This is an ideal platform for application-oriented research and teaching in the era of Industrie 4.0” (Prof. Dr. Christian Kuhn)

How can the Industrie 4.0 approach be described?

The "Digital Factory" at DHBW Mosbach was developed as an Industrie 4.0 model factory with practical processes in production, logistics, service and plant management. Within a ‘Living Lab’ concept, the factory will be adapted continuously and expanded to reflect the latest developments. It is used in teaching and research, thus enabling practical training of students, but also the active participation of future engineers in the development of components, software and processes with the latest concepts and technologies from science.

Enlarge: The Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg in conversation with the heads of DHBW Mosbach

What could be achieved?

Specific application expertise with the possibility of demonstration and integration into teaching is available at the DHBW in the following areas:

• Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) and integration technologies
• Business and industrial information systems and their information networking
• Decentralised automation technology
• Internet of Things - Technologies and Applications
• Process data management, KPI management, digital quality assurance systems
• Innovative human-machine-system interfaces, mobile solutions for visualization and control
• Simulation systems and technologies
• Automatic identification methods, Digital Product Memory
• Education and Training for Industrie 4.0

What measures have been taken to achieve the solution?

The foundation is the "Digital Factory", which serves as a "testbed" for new concepts, methods and technologies. This model factory will be adapted within the concept of a "Living Lab" continuously and expanded to reflect the latest developments. The aim is to map the real world of information technology and systems and automation technology in the actual extension and complexity. For this purpose, a variety of real industrial systems, components and technologies are fully integrated throughout the applications - in one room, with typical processes of production, logistics and service and plant management. A wide range of typical business processes have already been implemented completely with real systems, from the ERP system to the physical material flow.

What can others learn from it?

The DHBW is demonstration center and testbed for innovative concepts and technologies of the initiative Industrie 4.0. The "Digital Factory" is ideally suited to embed specific new technologies, concepts and methods into an existing typical landscape (test environment) in order to gather concrete experience, to evaluate the results and to transfer them to companies. The processes and innovations can be demonstrated to interested companies, in particular small and medium enterprises, and thus content and benefit of Industrie 4.0 can be made accesible, so that their own implementations can be promoted.