Mittelstand 4.0 Competence Centre Darmstadt – Digitisation helper for SMEs and the craft sector
Motivation
Digitisation and networking of the value creation processes of companies offer promising opportunities to increase the competitiveness of companies and to open up new market opportunities. In order to sensitise and empower SMEs to digitalisation in a targeted manner, the Mittelstand 4.0 competence centre in Darmstadt, which has been funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy since March 2016, offers numerous information, demonstration and training opportunities.
Objectives and procedure
The consortium partners from the TU Darmstadt are the Institutes for Production Management, Technology and Machine Tools (PTW), Computer Aided Design (DiK), Production Engineering and Forming Machines (PtU) and Ergonomics and Human Factors (IAD). In addition, there are the Fraunhofer Institutes for Secure Information Technology (SIT) and Structural Durability and System Reliability (LBF) as well as the Darmstadt Chamber of Industry and Commerce and the Frankfurt Chamber of Crafts. The aim of the centre of excellence is to support small and medium-sized enterprises in their digital transformation. The centre of excellence is intended to demonstrate potential to these companies, qualify their employees in a practical manner and then support them on their own path to more efficient business processes or new service offerings.To this end, the interdisciplinary consortium offers a needs-based programme ranging from demonstrators to successfully implemented practical solutions to target group-oriented further training events in the learning factories and training centres of the consortium partners. On-site visits to companies and consultation hours complement the service portfolio. Particular needs have been identified in the fields of “Efficient Value Creation Processes”, “Work 4.0”, “New Business Models”, “Energy Management” and “IT Security”.