The increasing digitalisation of value-added chains will present great challenges to businesses in the West Palatinate in the coming years. For the long-term competitiveness of businesses, it is decisive that they adjust to the accompanying changes as quickly as possible. As a research location, Kaiserslautern presents a great chance for the entire West Palatinate economy.

In 2015, a merger of multiple institutes and departments from Kaiserslautern, coordinated by the Deutsche Forschungszentrum für künstliche Intelligenz [German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence], successfully applied to become one of five medium-sized business competence centres 4.0 nationwide. We were a part of the application as an associated partner and due to that, it will be possible to create links between the centre of competence and medium-sized businesses.

The goal of the medium-sized business 4.0 competence centres is to prepare knowledge and bundle knowledge on the use of digital technologies and industry 4.0 in medium-sized companies that is relevant to the practice. Small and medium-sized companies should receive the chance to try out concrete innovations for their company and solve questions on efficiency and qualification when introducing state-of-the-art technologies.

Project period: since April 2015

Project partners: Deutsche Forschungszentrum für kunstliche Intelligenz | Institut für Technologie und Arbeit [Insitute for Technology and Work] | Lehrstuhl für Virtuelle Produktentwicklung [Department for Virtual Product Development]