Germany - Industry 4.0

“Industrie 4.0”(Industry 4.0 (I40)) is a national strategic initiative from the German government through the Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWI). It aims to drive digital manufacturing forward by increasing digitisation and the interconnection of products, value chains and business models. It also aims to support research, the networking of industry partners and standardisation.

I40 is pursued over a 10-15-year period and is based on the German government’s High Tech 2020 Strategy. The initiative was launched in2011 by the Communication Promoters Group of the Industry Science Research Alliance (FU) that was convened and organised by BMBF and adopted through the High-Tech Strategy 2020 Action Plan. I40 has become institutionalised with the Platform Industrie 4.0 (Platform I40) that now serves as a central point of contact for policy-makers. BMBF and BMWI have jointly allocated €200 million in funding.

Stakeholders consider I40 as a strategic measure to consolidate German technological leadership in mechanical engineering.I40has managed to limit segregation among industry sectors, to swiftly move research into mainstream practice in a fairly short period, and to scale-up nationally to become one of the largest industry networks of its kind

Forward-looking, some key challenges concern reaching out to SMEs and adapting management and shop-floor organisation at firm-level in support of the actual 140 implementation.