Demographic Change & Digitization in the Context of Industry 4.0

Megatrends such as demographic change, shortage of skilled workers, digitization and Industry 4.0 are currently on everyone's lips and are already acting as drivers of social change. In Germany, they meet an industrial landscape characterized by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). They form the backbone of the German economy, employing more than half of all employees in Germany, providing more than three-quarters of the training places and being responsible for a large part of the German economic power. This book looks at the opportunities and risks resulting from the megatrends explicitly from the perspective of SMEs. Special attention is paid to manufacturing SMEs, whose circumstances differ significantly from those of large corporations on the one hand, but also from those of service-providing SMEs on the other.