Implementation of Industry 4.0 in SMEs

Open Source Summit: Concrete implementation of Industry 4.0 in SMEs

Taking action together, joining forces and start implementation: that was the credo of the “Open Source Summit 2024” at the IndustryFusion Foundation's new DemoLab in Bad Wörishofen, Bavaria. The event focused on the practical implementation of IndustryFusion-X, the unique solution for cross-manufacturer networking of systems in industrial production. At the summit meeting of Industry 4.0 pragmatists in the field of industrial digitalization, high-ranking representatives from business and science focused on the latest developments relating to the digitalization of small and medium-sized enterprises – associations and SMEs also presented current challenges and new technologies.

The IndustryFusion Foundation's Open Source Summit 2024 was held under the motto “Joining forces and working together to implement” and focused on the challenges and opportunities of digitalizing the production of small and medium-sized enterprises. Around 100 guests from politics, industry, business and science took the opportunity to exchange ideas at this summit and gain the latest insights into how SMEs can master the leap into digital manufacturing. “It is important that we join forces in order to work together on implementation. Together with our partners, we are implementing Industry 4.0 in a very pragmatic way,” emphasized Igor Mikulina, President of the IndustryFusion Foundation's Board of Trustees, at the opening of the event. Bernhard Pohl, Member of the Bavarian State Parliament, made the same point in his welcoming address. SMEs – the “engine of the economy” - must network, he said: “In order to maintain prosperity, it is necessary to significantly increase productivity in order to remain internationally competitive.”

IndustryFusion-X: The networking solution for small and medium-sized companies in particular

The digitalization of companies plays a central role in increasing competitiveness. However, practical implementations of Industry 4.0, especially in small and medium-sized companies, are still rare - even in larger production companies, implementations are currently characterized by isolated solutions that have been tailored to the respective application. In order to jointly leverage the potential of digitalization in production, an association of medium-sized companies from the metalworking industry started to launch the standardized and manufacturer-independent open source networking solution IndustryFusion-X in 2020: On its basis, factory operators can network their production, machines and plant manufacturers can digitize their products and providers of digital services can offer their services via a standardized platform. Simple implementation is a central component of the solution: only then will companies of all sizes – explicitly including small and medium-sized enterprises – be able to intelligently digitize production and products and reap the benefits of networking the store floor. At this year's Open Source Summit, the IndustryFusion Foundation and its partners, such as Dell and Monitor ERP, presented how this can be implemented in practice.