VABA 4.0

In the research project VABA 4.0, the Project Group Business & Information Systems Engineering develops an IT tool that supports small and medium-sized businesses in the introduction of Industry 4.0.The created tool selects suitable technologies and helps to derive, evaluate and analyze an introduction and migration strategy.

The digitalization of production offers numerous potentials for German industry. At the same time, however, industrial companies are also facing many challenges. The diversity and complexity of the available Industry 4.0 technologies represent an initial hurdle to their deployment. A further crucial hurdle is the lack of company-specific processes that make it possible to select and evaluate the technologies and derive implementation or migration strategies based on them. In order to mitigate these hurdles, the Project Group Business & Information Systems Engineering of the Fraunhofer FIT and the Project Group Regenerative Production of the Fraunhofer IPA have joined forces with other partners from industry in the project “Preselection of Industry 4.0 Technologies and Derivation, Evaluation and Analysis of Implementation and Migration Strategies” (VABA 4.0). The goal of the project, which is funded by the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, is to develop an innovative and IT-supported process that supports small and medium-sized companies in all issues related to the selection and introduction of technologies. Both technological and economic aspects are considered and the technologies are analyzed under cost, benefit and risk aspects. In addition to the technological side, aspects of the digital workplace of the future and innovative forms of human-machine interaction are also included in the elaboration. The project provides an important impulse to German industry in order to support companies on their way into the age of digital production.