PECM Issue 34 2018 | Page 32

NEWS DIGITAL BONUS THURINGIA MITTELSTAND SUPPORT IN THE DIGITIZATION OF COMPANIES Since July, the Free State of Thuringia has been supporting companies that are aiming for digitization with the "Digital Bonus Thuringia". In the middle class 4.0 competence center Ilmenau with seat at the technical university Ilmenau interested entrepreneurs receive concrete and practical information for the conversion of digitization measures in their enterprise. In free workshops, experts help them to introduce digital work processes. How the digitization of a company improves business processes, products and services can be experienced by entrepreneurs in one of the five model factories of the Mittelstand 4.0 Competence Center Ilmenau. Thanks to the funding program "Mittelstand-Digital" of the Federal Ministry of Economics, the visit of the model factories is as free of charge as all other information offers of the competence center, the workshops and the workshop discussions. Digitization, Automation, Industry 4.0 - Keywords of a new era. Modern technologies are changing how we communicate and how we live. And they are also changing the world of work, especially dramatically the production. A fast-paced development that poses new challenges for small and medium-sized enterprises in particular, as the transition from proven, but slower, work processes to new, digitally supported processes requires preparation. With its funding program "Digitalbonus Thüringen", the Free State of Thuringia has been supporting small and medium- sized enterprises since digitization on 15 July. Expenditures for information and communication technology, ie hardware and software for the implementation of digitization measures, are funded with up to 50 percent, with a maximum of 15,000 euros. Before a company acquires new information and communication technology for digitization, the best way is to visit the model factories. 32 PECM Issue 34 The model factory "Migration" in Ilmenau informs about how old machines or plants work more efficiently with the help of new sensors. This retrofit method allows the monitoring of completely new parameters and ensures, for example, that maintenance work can be carried out before the failure of a machine. The model factory "Production Control" in Sondershausen is the right contact for the topics of automation and transparent production. Here, interested entrepreneurs in the "living factory" can look at automation solutions in practice. How digitalization measures production processes and machines "in Ilmenau. A demonstrator uses the example of an individualized screwdriver to show how products can be configured and networked. The model factory "3D printing" in Jena focuses on additive manufacturing. Additive manufacturing processes make it possible to create complex geometrical structures and at the same time to integrate a specific function into the manufactured component or tool that would be difficult or impossible to achieve with conventional methods. In the model factory, interested people can find out about creating 3D models, materials and techniques. The "Process Data" model factory in Schmalkalden answers questions about process data and their transfer, and offers practical help for the real-time acquisition of machine data, which provides valuable information for process and quality control. www.mittelstand-digital.de