Digital strategies for greater material efficiency in German industry

Digital strategies for greater material efficiency in German industry

Digital strategies for greater material efficiency in German industry
Author
Dr. Adriana Neligan / Edgar Schmitz
Publication Date
May, 2017
Country
Germany
Language for original content
Key Area
Scope
Dr. Adriana Neligan

This study delivers the first empirical findings on the relevance of digitisation to improving material efficiency based on the German company survey ‘IW-Zukunftspanel’.

German manufacturing firms have up to now only rarely digitised material efficiency measures to a great extent. If they are - particularly in large companies - they tend to be used for process optimisation. Around two fifths of the companies are at least moderately digitised in relation to the most important industrial efficiency measures, namely process optimisation and the use of new techniques, but there is still more than a third that is not at all. Companies have most frequently digitised cross-company materials cycles, but this instrument is only applied by two fifths of industrial companies.