Companies sometimes have it easier when it comes to Industry 4.0, Wank explains his field of research: they tend to have the means to build a new factory on a greenfield site, where they can safely test and introduce the new digital methods. The situation is different for small and medium-sized companies, which usually find it difficult to digitize their existing production facilities - so-called brownfield factories. As a first step, brownfield manufacturers should therefore carefully consider which key figures they specifically want to improve.

However, Wank not only conducts research in the field of digitalization, but also helps SMEs to safely break new digital ground as Managing Director of the new Mittelstand 4.0 Competence Centre in Darmstadt. "Above all, we approach digitalization methodically," explains the scientist. "The focus is not on replacing human work, but on supplementing it." For example, the aim is to automate previous manual activities such as recording and entering measurement data in the digital process. To this end, the experts use their Value Stream Mapping 4.0 to look for digital types of waste in manufacturing processes, for example. These include digital media breaks, where data is either not recorded or not forwarded. Wank: "Measurement data is often entered manually into the measuring computer, but regular analyses and forwarding of the information are not carried out."

Chaos cannot be eliminated digitally

Andreas Wank, Managing Director Mittelstand 4.0-Kompetenzzentrum Darmstadt: "Most of the time, things go wrong when someone tries to eliminate chaos with digitalization." (Image: Nikolaus Fecht)

Newcomers should therefore first learn to understand their processes and stabilize them before digitizing them. "It's often not worth going straight into further digitalization if you don't know exactly what the processes look like," explained Wank. "Most of the time, things go wrong when someone tries to eliminate chaos with digitalization." For example, when analyzing a Hessian company with a large number of variants, the Darmstadt-based company discovered that the flow of information between purchasing, work preparation and assembly was not functioning properly. Digitization had already failed in the first step because no one really understood the flow of information.

The experts at the competence center supported the company with a systematic approach: They first defined the ideal process flow in order to then develop digital support together with the employees.