Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAOTowards more competitive manufacturing enterprises and more attractive workplaces
Digital transformation and Industrie 4.0 continue to make inroads into R&D and manufacturing. People, products, IT systems, machines, plants and the like are increasingly connected and talking to each other, often via mobile devices. Many companies are pondering how to best harness the power of digitalization and tap its vast potential. Our services can help you align your strategies, processes and organization in an efficient and methodical way to make the most of state-of-the-art technologies in your manufacturing company. Drawing on many years’ experience in real-world consulting projects and the latest findings in cutting-edge science and research, we have what it takes to make the transition work for you.
Putting innovative methods and vast experience developing products and production lines to work, our experts investigate the development process from front to end. Everything from the inceptive idea to the finishing touch on the final product comes under their microscope. We test new products and processes in virtual environments such as our “Immersive Engineering Lab” to build solutions that hone your competitive edge. Then we fine-tune these processes in near-real-world environments such as the “Future Work Lab“ to speed their journey to practical application.
Digital tools such as virtual and augmented reality help us design and assess processes, products and even entire buildings. We also explore ways in which digital engineering can accelerate, improve and boost the cost-effectiveness of organizational processes in manufacturing companies’ technical departments.
Our customers can also count on our support for their efforts to develop efficient processes and attractive work systems, and to organize industrial workflows in more flexible ways.
Our Cognitive Engineering and Production researchers focus on:
- Optimizing manufacturing companies’ processes, from digitally supported engineering to lean job processing on the shop floor
- Making the most of IT in product development
- Actualizing use cases and custom Industrie 4.0 solutions, from the inceptive idea to the product launch
- Drafting attractive and resilient staffing plans for shop floors, flexible employment models and ergonomic shift schedules
- Assessing and fashioning manufacturing workstations with exoskeletons
- Digitalizing production lines and deploying digital twins, from initial consultation through to developing and optimizing smart products, processes and even entire factories
- Developing virtual reality technologies and applications to support engineering in the manufacturing industry
- Devising human-machine interaction technologies and concepts for connected production lines
- Designing interactive surfaces and spaces
- Incorporating VR/AR in learning and remote scenarios