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Industrial Digitalization and Automation (DA), promoted through new production paradigms such as Industry 4.0 currently dominates the strategy agendas of industrial companies. However, practitioners report various problems while implementing DA into their organizations work-routines. We find underlying problems in missing operational monitoring systems to assess and control the DA-implementation status. We therefore propose a holistic monitoring system using 143 developed DA-implementation key performance indicators in nine dimensions. Moreover, we integrate the monitoring system into a continuous improvement approach following the PDCA-circle. First applications show increased objectivity during initial KPI-status assessments, higher acceptance of defined KPI-target-states and increased alignment during definition of future DA-projects.

Industrial enterprises increasingly identify their employee's digital competences as a main barrier towards modern manufacturing paradigms - such as Industry 4.0. Considering shorter technology cycles, they find a key enabler in timely capturing existing digital competences to forecast future competence requirements relating to identified trends. To support digital competence planning in practise, we developed a digital competence maturity model (DigiCoM), consisting of 49 attributes in four dimensions to measure maturity on individual employee level. The model considers digital competences required for direct value creation activities as well as competences in supporting areas. We tested the model in several use-cases, whereby two use-cases in SMEs are presented in detail. Result evaluation shows that the proposed approach makes digital competences visible and measurable and builds the basis for the derivation of competence developments. The DigiCoM therefore allows interconnecting strategic human resource planning with operational employee competences on an individual level.

Manufacturing enterprises are currently facing substantial challenges with regard to disruptive concepts such as the Internet of Things, Cyber Physical Systems or Cloud-based Manufacturing - also referred to as Industry 4.0. Subsequently, increasing complexity on all firm levels creates uncertainty about respective organizational and technological capabilities and adequate strategies to develop them. In this paper we propose an empirically grounded novel model and its implementation to assess the Industry 4.0 maturity of industrial enterprises in the domain of discrete manufacturing. Our main goal was to extend the dominating technology focus of recently developed models by including organizational aspects. Overall we defined 9 dimensions and assigned 62 items to them for assessing Industry 4.0 maturity. The dimensions ""Products"", ""Customers"", ""Operations"" and ""Technology"" have been created to assess the basic enablers. Additionally, the dimensions ""Strategy"", ""Leadership"", Governance, ""Culture"" and ""People"" allow for including organizational aspects into the assessment. Afterwards, the model has been transformed into a practical tool and tested in several companies whereby one case is presented in the paper. First validations of the model's structure and content show that the model is transparent and easy to use and proved its applicability in real production environments.

Although industrial decision makers show increased readiness to invest in their company’s digital transformation – currently referred to as Industry 4.0, they lack knowledge regarding their current status in Industry 4.0 and strategic guidance towards its realization. In this paper, we present a holistic procedure model that guides manufacturing companies from their first contact with Industry 4.0 until the definition of concrete action fields and their realization. Our model thereby builds on the maturity assessment of 65 critical success factors in Industry 4.0 and their sequencing to create company specific realization-paths and roadmaps following a 10-step approach. We validated und improved the model over a time-period of two years, whereby one application from a manufacturing company - aiming for the creation of their global Industry 4.0 strategy – will be presented.