Industry 4.0 Glossary

After Robotic Process Automation (RPA), the first companies are already taking the next development step with hyperautomation. Racel Maalej, partner and managing director at technology partner PKF Fasselt Consulting GmbH and its subsidiary CAPTOS GmbH, and Frank Krüger, Senior Partner at Staufen AG responsible for the topic of digitization, discuss the direction in which technology is developing and how it is finding its way out of offices and into production halls.  

Staufen AG has compiled the German Industry 4.0 Index every year since 2014. The 2022 index indicates that the German economy is threatening to split down the middle. In 2022, the German Industry 4.0 Index was compiled as part of the study “Companies in Transformation.” For this, we surveyed a total of 363 companies in Germany in the fall of 2021, a good two-thirds of whom are from the mechanical and plant engineering industry, the electrical industry, and the automotive sector. 

Intelligent Industry 4.0 production processes can be applied to accomplish a variety of objectives. These include achieving greater productivity and efficiency, fulfilling consumer specifications faster and more expediently, and developing brand-new industrial products and business models. Small and mid-sized companies often have a particular need for this kind of consulting and guidance.