Competences for the In-house Development of Digital Innovations in German Mechanical Engineering Companies

The German mechanical engineering sector plays a key role as provider and user of digitally integrated products, processes and business models for Industry 4.0. However, it has not yet been empirically investigated to what extent these companies are able to independently develop digital products and services and what kind of competences they need to be able to do this successfully. An online survey of 335 German mechanical engineering companies and 15 deepening expert interviews shows that they mainly regard digitized service offerings such as predictive maintenance or condition monitoring as core competences and develop them in-house. The analysis shows that agile and design-oriented development methods can significantly improve the companies’ abilities to develop digitized products themselves. An interdisciplinary approach will become more and more important in the future, as digitally integrated innovations are increasingly taking place in the intersection of different disciplines.