Consortium Benchmarking: WZL honors companies with excellent Implementation of Industry 4.0 in R&D 2017
At the final conference on October 11, 2017, the Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL) of RWTH Aachen University, in cooperation with Complexity Management Academy GmbH and a top-class industrial consortium, honored the five best companies in the benchmarking on the topic of "Industry 4.0 in R&D". The aim of the benchmarking project was to identify particularly successful procedures and concepts in the systematic implementation and realization of Industry 4.0 in the central research and development area. For their outstanding achievements, the Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL) of RWTH Aachen awarded the companies CLAAS, Continental Automotive, DIEHL Controls, ENGEL AUSTRIA and TRUMPF Machine Tools as "Successful Practices 2017".
The "Successful Practices" were determined in cooperation with a jury of experts from successful international companies, who also provided the consortium for the project. Members of the consortium were 3M, Bosch, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen, KACO, Lasco, Miele and Porsche. Professor Günther Schuh, Director of the Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL) of RWTH Aachen University, headed the project.
At the beginning of the project in November 2016, the Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL) of RWTH Aachen University, in close cooperation with the consortium, first worked out the current challenges in the field of "Industry 4.0 in R&D". These formed the basis for a detailed written questionnaire study. The companies surveyed provided answers to selected topics such as "Optimizing products", "Creating new products", "Enabling development" and "Customer integration".
A total of 171 companies participated in the benchmarking. The majority of the participants came from Germany. The remaining participants are based in Austria or Switzerland. A detailed screening of 33 top performers revealed the 14 most promising candidates, which were presented to the consortium partners during the review meeting in May 2017 in order to identify the five successful practice companies sought. The consortium partners then visited the selected companies and analysed their implementation on site. In all cases it was confirmed that the selected companies used particularly successful approaches for the implementation of Industry 4.0 in R&D. Five of them can now rightly call themselves "Successful Practices".
Final conference with presentations of the Successful Practices
During the final conference on October 11, 2017, the project findings were presented by the Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL) of RWTH Aachen University in the form of ten core theses on the successful implementation of Industry 4.0 in R&D. The results of the project were presented in the form of a series of presentations. The representatives of the winning companies presented what a successful implementation in practice can look like in their own presentations and then accepted their awards.