Competence Center Industry 4.0

First, the DIN Innovation Award went to a specification that the speaker of the Competence Center, Prof. Clemens Westerkamp, helped to develop, and recently the transfer institution was put on the map of the nationwide "Industrie 4.0" platform.

Industry 4.0 is on everyone's lips.

• "What's behind it?"
• "Does our company need to align with that?"
• "What does this mean for us and our employees?"

Many of these questions are being asked today by entrepreneurs in small and medium-sized enterprises and the skilled trades. The debates, research and studies to date have tended to focus on large companies.

For this reason, knowledge about the opportunities and risks of digital technologies and processes is not very widespread, especially among SMEs and the skilled trades.

The new competence center "I4os - Industrie 4.0 Osnabrück" (www.i4os.de) bundles the know-how of Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences and its partner companies in the field of digitalization and networking of small and medium-sized enterprises.

It is affiliated with the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science and is headed by Professors Clemens Westerkamp, Dirk Rokossa and Siegmar Lampe.

"We inform small and medium-sized enterprises in our region about Industry 4.0 solutions that have already been tested in practice"

explains spokesman Prof. Clemens Westerkamp.

"We also offer our customers suggestions, concepts, contacts and support in the implementation of their projects."

Only a few months after its foundation, the new transfer institution already has two important successes to report: First, this year's DIN Innovation Award went to a specification that Prof.

Westerkamp co-developed. Now the Osnabrück competence center has been put on the map of the nationwide "Industry 4.0" platform.