01. FVI Expert Breakfast

In an open discussion round with Marcel Hahn, Jens Reisenweber, and experts from the manufacturing SME sector, we shed light on the current reality between maintenance and production. The key insights:

• The Productivity Paradox: Despite years of digitalization and automation, real productivity in many areas is declining or stagnating. The reason: New tools often create new administrative hurdles (shadow IT, Excel export-import orgies) instead of reducing work. We often digitalize for the sake of digitalization, without questioning the process.

• The demographic reality cannot be ignored: In the coming years, around 12 million workers will leave the market (baby boomers). This gap cannot be closed by migration or birth rates. The logical consequence: We must find technical solutions that preserve knowledge and make processes efficient enough to be managed with fewer people.

• ISO process vs. shop floor reality: There is often a massive discrepancy between the process in the manual (ISO 9001 etc.) and what actually happens at the machine. Trying to digitalize the theoretical "should-process" cements inefficiency. True digitalization must start where value is created – if necessary with the "whiteboard on the wall" instead of in the ivory tower.

• The "Puss in Boots" mindset: Maintenance often starts like the miller's son: underestimated and with few resources (only the "cat"). But with cleverness, the courage to decide, and network thinking, it can – like in the fairy tale – become the "castle owner". It's about generating value from an apparently hopeless position through intelligent strategies (instead of just hard work in the hamster wheel).

• Courage to leave gaps & error culture: Better to start imperfectly and adjust than to remain in planning paralysis. A "wrong" step brings more insight than stagnation.

Classification: From Administration to Operational Intelligence

This discussion precisely confirms the observation that drove us to develop ADAM: The German industry does not suffer from a lack of software, but from a lack of connection and simplicity.

When experts like Christoph Funken and Jens Reisenweber state that we are "hamsters in the wheel" – busy bees that do not bring the nectar (the result) home – it is a call for Operational Intelligence.

• Secure knowledge instead of managing it: When the experienced "overall wearers" leave, their knowledge must not disappear into the "black book". It must live in a system that is so simple that the successor can use it immediately (the "digital safe").

• Sovereignty over processes: We must not let rigid ERP specifications dictate how we work. Technology must adapt to the process, not the other way around. The goal is not to automate the person away, but to free them from the administrative burden ("power steering instead of monitoring"), so they can apply their expertise where it really counts: at the plant.

Conclusion: We do not need further complex IT mega-projects that create new silos. We need pragmatic bridge builders who make data and knowledge so easily accessible that the "cat" becomes a strategic partner of management. This is exactly what we mean by "Simplify your digital Transformation".