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School of Engineering

Creating intelligent links between manufacturing facilities, products and people allows new processes, business models and services to be developed. This ZHAW platform provides comprehensive support to companies transforming their businesses to the Industry 4.0 model.

Industry 4.0 is disrupting existing value chains and transforming entire industries. Successful implementation of new business models requires expertise from a number of different disciplines. 

For that reason, the ZHAW School of Engineering has channelled its Industry 4.0 expertise into one platform, combining know-how from a range of disciplines to create one overarching application.

Key topics and areas of research

The Industrie 4.0 platform combines the broad expertise of over ten institutes from various departments at ZHAW, such as the School of Engineering, the School of Management and Law, and the Department of Life Sciences and Facility Management.

The topic of the fourth industrial revolution permeates all parts of the economy and is therefore interdisciplinary. In research and teaching, ZHAW focuses on the economic needs and challenges of Industrie 4.0, for example in the areas of services and business model transformation. Based on this, the corresponding product and process development takes place, combining the mechanical-physical manifestation of products with the current state and potential of electronic systems (embedded systems) and software.

For the Internet of Things (IoT), ZHAW has expertise in wireless information transmission, such as low-power sensors and wireless communication, as well as in solving complex tasks in the field of automation. With research and teaching in the field of cloud computing, ZHAW contributes to not only mastering but also analyzing the large amounts of data generated. This, in turn, provides the ideal starting point for offering research and services in data analytics and risk management, whether for decision-making in business processes or creating additional customer benefits through data-driven services.

ZHAW combines all these elements with a holistic approach to process design and simulation to achieve data consistency in today's business environment and to cover the entire chain from suppliers to customers (supply chain management), including consideration of global industrial solutions. The interdisciplinary Industrie 4.0 platform at ZHAW offers a comprehensive point of contact for SMEs and large companies with questions about Industrie 4.0 and IoT, with its wealth of research focuses.

Continuing education (in german)

Events (in german)

Industrie 4.0 Blog

Presentations, speeches and publications

Industry 4.0 showroom

Our showroom provides an insight into our current Industry 4.0 research initiatives. A series of demonstrations showcases the ZHAW School of Engineering’s expertise in this field and the services it can offer. Interested? Then simply contact us to arrange a visit.

Research projects

Project PRIME. Precisely calibrating output to match market demand

The costs of manufacturing in Europe are onerous, particularly for SMEs. Industry 4.0 applications have the potential to enable resources to be used more efficiently. Against this backdrop, the ZHAW School of Engineering worked as part of a European research consortium on the development of an intelligent production system. Read more

Participating institutes, centres and departments

Members

Institute

Name

Centre for Artificial Intelligence

Alisa Rupenyan

Center for International Industrial Solutions

Peter Qvist-Sørensen

Nico Pfändler

Institute of Applied Mathematics and Physics

Ruedi Füchslin

Lukas Lichtsteiner

Institute of Computational Life Sciences

Lukas Hollenstein

Institute of Computational Physics

Andreas Witzig

Thomas Hocker

Institute of Data Analysis and Process Design

Thomas Herrmann

Jürg Meierhofer

Institute of Food and Beverage Innovation

Christoph Lustenberger

Institute of Marketing Management

Linard Barth

Manuel Holler

Institute of Mechanical Systems

Thomas Mayer

Mario Weder

Institute of Mechatronic Systems

Hans Wernher van de Venn

Michal Malinowski

Institute of Sustainable Development

Maike Scherrer

Vicente Carabias-Hütter

Institute of Embedded Systems

Andreas Rüst

Simon Künzli

Institute of Applied Information Technology

Michael Wahler

Institute of Product Development and Production Technologies

Adrian Burri

Daniel Schmid

Institute of Signal Processing and Wireless Communications

Marc Kuhn