Assessing and mitigating the risk of digital manufacturing: Development and implementation of a digital risk management method

Abstract While academics and practitioners mostly agree over the potentials of digital manufacturing, the insights and opinions on the associated risk management differ widely. Based on the analyses of more than 300 projects for digital manufacturing and 50 in-depth expert interviews, we develop a method for assessing risks factors and assigning situation-specific mitigation strategies for a variety of digital manufacturing applications. A classification of risk factors and application fields is the basis for the web-based assessment and mitigation tool designed for the preparation and evaluation of digitalization projects in production and logistics.