Open Access

Originating in 2011, Industry 4.0 describes the digital revolution of industry and has since become a collective term for smart, mutable and data driven factories. During the last decade systemic and methodical solutions were designed and implemented that enable corresponding data driven use cases for producers. Today's system providers offer complex data ecosystems in which data-driven use cases are built-in and implementers offer focused digitalisation projects to rapidly address quick wins. While an assessment of expectations around Industry 4.0 results in requirements within the domains of modifiability, connectivity, data and organisation for an IT-architecture, many such solutions are found to be violating essential requirements as systemic flexibility and data-availability. Not only is this a relevant matter for architectural purists, but it highlights real problems that industry is still facing while applying digitalisation measures in pursuit of Industry 4.0. While event-driven architectures go back to the design of modern operating systems, the emergence of powerful, resilient and cheap broker-technologies has risen the polarity of event-driven IT-architectures for businesses in the last decade. Although its occurrence is predominantly represented in ecommerce, finance and insurance, many prominent manufactures have since begun their transformation into an event-driven IT-architecture. Reasons for this architectural adaptation include exceptional data availability, resilience, scalability and especially data sovereignty. An assessment of event-driven IT-architecture's properties and implications reveals an excellent fit for the architectural requirements of Industry 4.0. In this work the subject of Industry 4.0 is analysed along literature to derive a collective understanding of expectations from a factory implementing Industry 4.0. Subsequently, IT-architectural requirements are derived that describe an architecture capable of satisfying these expectations. Then event-driven IT-architectures are analysed regarding their structural composition and capabilities. Finally, the fit of event-driven IT-architecture is evaluated against the architectural requirements of Industry 4.0, discussing congruence and divergence.

With the Aachen PPC model and the reference models of service and maintenance, the FIR has set standards in the past which provide the basis for an efficient processing of orders in both production and services within manufacturing industries and maintenance. In the course of advancing those reference models efficient transaction of business processes in production and service has reached a state that is essential for customer oriented and efficient transaction of processes today.

Lennardt Söhngen, Leiter des Projekts "DiSerHub" vom FIR e. V. an der RWTH Aachen, spricht in dieser Folge mit Professor Günther Schuh, Leiter des Lehrstuhls für Produktionssystematik an der RWTH Aachen und Direktor des FIR e. V. an der RWTH Aachen, über Circular Economy als Wegweiser in der Automobilbranche.

Software-based automation is becoming increasingly important to execute administrative processes more efficiently. It is characterized by different levels of technology performance. The area of application for software-based automation ranges from individual rule-based tasks requiring human-machine collaboration, to decision-based end-to-end automation performed by an artificial intelligence. Existing approaches found in literature and practice to classify those automation stages only insufficiently define the boundaries between the different technology levels. Due to this heterogeneity, it is often unclear how different technology characteristics affect the working environment of a company. This leads to an unpredictable nature of automation: job creation as an opportunity and job loss as a challenge. In this paper, a literature review shows the current state of research regarding the different classifications of technology levels for software-based automation. Consequently, a comparison of these approaches enables the deduction of relevant criteria and creates a frame for the classification of different automation levels. This framework provides an approach for further research to incorporate the effects into the working environment.

A mature corporate culture is indispensable to master the transformation of becoming a digital, agile company. The concept of Industrie 4.0 offers productivity potentials that can be exploited by digital transformation. For their realization, the corporate culture needs to be addressed in great detail during the transformation. A mature corporate culture in the context of Industrie 4.0 facilitates and supports the transformation process. The establishment of a positive corporate culture is difficult and complex not only because it is a generally intangible aspect, but also because companies do not know which aspects of corporate culture they need to pay attention to in order to achieve a successful company transformation. The present research paper aims to close this research gap by providing a methodology that enables companies to measure their corporate culture maturity level. The methodology, presented in form of a morphology that represents a maturity level logic in the context of Industrie 4.0, outlines seven essential features, with several possible types representing the different levels of a maturity development.