Almost exactly two years ago, the WGP published its Industry 4.0 position paper as a wake-up call to politicians and industry. "We saw the need to bring the perspective of mechanical engineering into the discussion on digitalization - and to point out the steps that we believe are urgently needed to make the concept of Industry 4.0 a reality," explains Prof. Berend Denkena, President of the WGP and Head of the Institute of Production Engineering and Machine Tools IFW at Leibniz Universität Hannover. "A lot has happened so far. But important steps are still missing to keep production in Germany fit for the future."

Digital transformation tends to be sporadic

"Many of the topics we discussed in the wake-up call, such as the digital shadow or the cloud-based platform economy, are now the focus of public debate," adds Prof. Thomas Bauernhansl, initiator and one of the four authors of the WGP position paper. However, even though most companies in the manufacturing sector are now addressing digitalization, they are usually only tackling individual projects. "The digital transformation as a whole is far from being implemented. This is because the old business models that have been working for many years are still going very well in the current economic downturn," says Bauernhansl. "Once this phase is over, however, those who have dealt intensively with Industry 4.0 will have a competitive advantage." Bauernhansl heads the Institute of Industrial Manufacturing and Factory Operation (IFF) at the University of Stuttgart and the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA).

High-tech pilot regions needed

Politicians have taken up the topic of digitalization on a massive scale - the WGP authors agree on this. However, living labs, which the WGP called for two years ago, still do not exist. The idea was to set up entire factories as real laboratories, so to speak, in order to understand how Industry 4.0 works in practice. "However, a very good project landscape has developed, and centers have emerged across Germany to support companies in implementing Industry 4.0 projects," reports Prof. Gunther Reinhart, Head of the Institute for Machine Tools and Industrial Management (iwb) at the Technical University of Munich and Managing Director of the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Casting, Composite and Processing Technology (IGCV) in Augsburg. Over the past two years, for example, 22 publicly funded SME 4.0 competence centers have been established across Germany, offering interested companies free support and "Industry 4.0 to touch" - from demonstrators to learning factories for intelligent production.

Nevertheless, there are still some fundamental issues. There is a lack of infrastructure and standards. Particularly in rural areas, Germany is lagging far behind internationally in terms of mobile communications and the Internet. "We should create pilot regions where things can be tried out at the highest technical level," suggests Bauernhansl. "We need suitable, i.e. supportive, legal framework conditions quickly, for example in terms of data protection. In this respect, too, politics in Germany is currently still lagging behind rather than looking ahead." At the same time, politicians often have exaggerated expectations of the maturity of technologies. "Many believe that the digital transformation can only be implemented, but the fact is that we still need to develop technologies," says Bauernhansl.

Taking the middle class with you

Such fundamental difficulties are exacerbated by the fact that "we are in strong competition with Google and Co. in the development of future technologies such as machine learning," says Prof. Jörg Krüger, Head of the Institute for Machine Tools and Factory Management (IWF) at TU Berlin. "This means that we urgently need a further boost and support from politicians in order to further expand our strengths in the practice-oriented implementation of Industry 4.0 with new technologies." This is because "the high technologies that undoubtedly already exist are finding it difficult to find their way into SMEs," complains Krüger, who also heads the Automation Technology business unit at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology (IPK). "If you ask companies, you often hear 'We've just arrived at Industry 2.0 or 3.0'. Small and medium-sized enterprises make up the majority of the manufacturing industry in Germany. They are the backbone of our prosperity and must remain competitive."

WGP hopes for a statement

The WGP experts see the fact that the new government has set up its own state ministry for digitalization as a good sign. However, they are still missing statements on digitalization in production. The time window is now narrow. It's not just the infrastructure and standards that are lacking. New training and further education concepts are also urgently needed to reflect the rapidly advancing developments in information and communication technologies in teaching. "More interdisciplinarity and closer integration of research and practice would be helpful here," advises Krüger. "The new government could provide important impetus with the help of exchange models, for example." Under such models, employees from universities and companies could temporarily swap jobs. The establishment of the successful German model of dual study courses would also provide more practical experience in engineering. nc