Forecasting Next Generation Manufacturing

Manufacturing companies have just begun to implement the concepts of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) on a larger scale. Still, this area is characterized by a rapid pace of technological change, blurring boundaries between physical, digital, and biological systems, and a quickly changing growing political, economic, and social environment -- leading to high uncertainty in decision making and many questions about the future development in this field.

Frank T. Piller has headed the Institute for Technology and Innovation Management at RWTH Aachen University (Germany) since 2007. Earlier, he worked at the MIT Sloan School of Management (USA) and was an Assistant Professor of Management at the TUM Business School, Munich, Germany from 1999 to 2004. Frank Piller has worked as a consultant and delivered executive workshops for many international companies, including several DAX30 and Fortune 500 corporations. As a member of their board of directors or board of scientific advisors, he works with a number of innovative technology companies to bring his research into practice. His current research focuses on the need for established corporations to cope with the challenge of digital transformation and similar disruptive technology innovations. He is the chairman of a cross-industry group hosted by VDI (Association of German Engineers) to develop standards in the field of platform-based digital business models.

Verena Nitsch studied applied psychology at Charles Sturt University in Australia and the University of Central Lancashire in the UK before completing her master's degree in industrial and organizational psychology at Manchester Business School. She completed her doctorate in engineering in the field of human-technology interaction at the Bundeswehr University Munich (Germany), where she became a Professor of Cognitive Ergonomics and headed the Human Factors Institute (IfA) from 2016 to 2018. Since June 2018, she is a Full Professor and Director of the Institute of Industrial Engineering and Ergonomics at RWTH Aachen University (Germany). She is also currently Head of the Department of Product and Process Ergonomics at the Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing, and Ergonomics in Germany.

Dirk Lüttgens heads the research clusters on open innovation and business model innovation at the Institute for Technology and Innovation Management, RWTH AachenUniversity (Germany). As Research Domain Leader in the Cluster of Excellence "Internet of Production" within the German Excellence Initiative he focuses on the usage of industrial data and data spaces in the context of Industry 4.0 and platform-based business ecosystems. In his research, he examines, among other things, which strategies and business models companies must adopt in threatened markets to avoid losing their competitive position to new entrants. He has received several (inter)national awards for his research and teaching activities (e.g., nomination for the Innovation McKinsey Award, AOM Awards, Borchers Plakette, Hauschildt Award of the VHB, Best Lecture of the RWTH Aachen)

Alexander Mertens is head of the Department of Ergonomics and Human-Machine Systems at the Institute of Industrial Engineering and Ergonomics (IAW) at RWTH Aachen University (Germany). He has a master’s degree in computer science from RWTH and received his Ph.D. in theoretical medicine in 2012 and in engineering two years later. He is the founder and managing director of a company for the transfer of ergonomic findings into industrial practice; heads the Aachener DenkfabrEthik (Germany) as a citizen-oriented platform for an interdisciplinary discourse of ethical, legal, and social implications of technologization; and coordinates the interdisciplinary Research School in the Cluster of Excellence "Internet of Production." His research focuses on the target group-oriented design of mobile information and communication technology as well as telemedical services and systems.

Sebastian Pütz received his bachelor’s degree in psychology from RWTH Aachen University (Germany) and his master’s degree in human factors engineering and ergonomics from the Technical University of Munich (Germany). He is a research associate and Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Ergonomics and Human-Machine Systems at the Institute of Industrial Engineering and Ergonomics (IAW)at RWTH Aachen University. He is also the coordinator of an interdisciplinary workstream within the Cluster of Excellence “Internet of Production”, which investigates the human factor in Next Generation Manufacturing. Sebastian’s research focuses on the cognitive ergonomics of human-machine interfaces with the goal of optimizing operator workload in socio-technical production systems.

Marc Van Dyck is a research associate at the Institute for Technology and Innovation Management (TIM) at RWTH Aachen University (Germany). At the institute, he leads the workstream in the Cluster of Excellence “Internet of Production.” His research focuses on platform ecosystems in the industrial sector which he has presented at international conferences (e.g., AOM, HICSS, R&D Management). For his studies, he received a doctoral scholarship from the Friedrich-Naumann Foundation for Freedom. In addition, Marc is a visiting research fellow in the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard University (USA). Prior to his doctoral studies, Marc worked as a senior consultant at McKinsey Digital. He holds a bachelor’s degree in international business from DHBW Stuttgart and a master’s degree in politics and public administration from Zeppelin University, both in Germany.