To what extent is digitalization in production already influencing the working environment today?
Digitalization in production has been intensively discussed, tested and implemented not only since the term "Industry 4.0" was first publicly proclaimed almost exactly 10 years ago at the Hannover Messe. Most companies have been working on the digitalization of their factories for a long time. However, we are seeing major differences in implementation. Operational processes in planning and production are often still manual or paper-based, even though market-ready digital solutions are available. Obstacles for many managers include strict requirements regarding amortization periods and profitability, a lack of personnel capacity or the necessary infrastructural requirements such as high-performance data lines and networks. However, there are also pioneers where, for example, digital worker assistance systems or networked screwdriving technology on assembly lines have long been common practice. Digitalization is omnipresent - if not already in operational processes, then at least in people's minds, conversations and strategy papers.

Doyou see jobs at risk - especially in less qualified areas where additional qualifications are also difficult to obtain?
First of all, a distinction must be made between the two topics of digitalization and automation. Digitalization primarily leads to more data-based transparency and enables a wide range of evaluations and predictions, for example through the use of machine learning. Automation solutions, on the other hand, can take over or facilitate certain processes. Here again, we need to differentiate between physical and cognitive work steps. While driverless transport systems replace manual forklift movements, for example, intelligent assistance systems provide support with work instructions for rarely assembled product variants.

To come back to your question, I believe that two aspects have a decisive influence. Firstly, demographic change and the increasing shortage of skilled workers make every single employee valuable. Secondly, productivity and thus the competitiveness of Germany as a business location is essential for the continued existence of many jobs in production and logistics. And digitalization is making a significant contribution to this. In the future, many activities with a supposedly lower requirement profile can be raised to a higher level through digitalization tools and solutions, for example through intelligent assistance systems and decision-making aids. In my view, digitalization does not put jobs at risk - on the contrary, no digitalization or digitalization that is too slow endangers competitiveness and therefore jobs.

How will digitalization affect the way people work in factories in the future; how will everyday working life change?
Despite increasing digitalization and automation, many manual tasks will remain, including in production areas such as assembly. People are still the most flexible and important resource in production and will remain so in the medium term. Nevertheless, intelligent planning and control systems and automated equipment will allow many processes to run autonomously, thereby changing the role of humans in the factory. People will increasingly become supervisors, requirements managers and problem solvers. Artificial intelligence and machine learning can already be used to evaluate large volumes of data and recognize correlations that cannot be grasped by humans. Ultimately, however, these solutions follow a pattern predefined by humans. If there are malfunctions, for example, these often result in the shutdown of an entire production line. The problem at hand is often unforeseeable and must be solved individually and promptly by humans. As long as machines are not able to recognize patterns across the board and solve unforeseeable situations independently, humans will remain indispensable. In the short to medium term, the focus will be on supporting employees as individually as possible in their operational work and the decisions to be made by machine. The combination of human skills with technological solutions is always promising when, for example, structure and work content are difficult to plan, work content is very complex or stressful or the general conditions are subject to a certain dynamic.