The SmartFactoryKL research network coordinates the joint reseach and development activity of the member companies. We identify research interests through regular exchange with the members, check funding possibilities to support the projects on regional, national and international levels, and form competent consortia, if necessary.

A highly qualified, well-trained, and experienced staff ensures that our research and development projects are approached with current state of the art knowledge. We support the completion of study, bachelor, master or doctoral theses.

SmartFactoryKL maintains its own press and marketing department,which manages the publication of content and gives the member companies public visibility on many levels, in the trade press, at trade fairs, and in other media:

• On our youtube chanel, we regularly broadcast films and video clips.
• Every 3d thursday of the month via youtube, we broadcast the program smartfactorykl
• We regularly publish press releases.
• Our website is constantly updated, in particular, the news section.
• Our public newsletter is published several times per year.
• Every six weeks we send sf inside, our internal newsletter, to our members.
• We maintain relationships with the relevant trade press and support the publication of articles and interviews.
• We establish contacts between journalists and the experts from our member companies.
• We organize press events.
• We are active on the social media channels twitter and linkedin on a daily basis.
• We sponsor the annual innovation day event for members and relevant public figures.
• We host group visits and tours of our production level 4-demonstrator ecosystem.
• We routinely host visits by government officials.
• The white papers prepared with our members are made available for download on our website. Of course, we also publicize them.

We provide free film material and photos to our membership and journalists.

Meetings of the marketing and press managers of our membership take place at the monthly working lunch, where they discuss communication strategies and issues relevant to PR and marketing.

Our members can try out and evaluate their concepts, systems, hardware, or software in our Production Level 4-ecosystem. Together, our experts and their colleagues from the membership achieve success with advance developments and innovative implementations. In this way, all participants gain valuable experience that they can then transfer back into their companies. As a by-product, important contacts, good discussions and, time and again, new business ideas and relationships are created.

The innovative ideas of our partners cause a great deal of attention when they are installed in one of the production cells or the demonstrator. As a rule, the partners travel with us to the hannover messe.they are also featured in our monthly youtube show SmartFactoryKL LIVE. They are introduced at innovation day, mentioned in press releases and brochures, and are the focus of journalists covering visits by politicians and reporting on developments in the production of the future.

We provide a manufacturer-independent, realistic research and demonstration environment (demonstrator ecosystem) through our network of industrial companies and research institutes. The demonstrator landscape serves our active members as a testbed for new technologies, control architectures, and ai methods and components.

System components and control elements from a wide range of manufacturers can be integrated, tested, and further developed as part of prototypes and pilot projects. The visibility of such implementations is enhanced by their presence in the demonstrator landscape, e.g., at the Hannover Messe, in social media, or during official government visits to Kaiserslautern.

We support our members, partners, and customers in all phases of consulting projects: from the identification and evaluation of use cases, to the design of individual Industrie 4.0 solutions and their integration in existing production processes, to the technical coordination of Industrie 4.0 projects. We also work on the development of migration strategies for follow-up activities. In principle, we are open to inquiries and orders from any company, including those outside our circle of members. We enjoy developing our findings in application-oriented work projects for practical use in industry.

Just contact us, Jonas Metzger takes care of industrial projects and technology transfer (+49 631 343 773 24 / info@smartfactory.de).

First introduced in Kaiserslautern, the term Industrie 4.0 has spread around the world. Also, the first Industrie 4.0 demonstrator system and the first Production Level 4-Demonstrator were constructed here. The success of these systems makes SmartFactoryKL a much-in-demand contact for policy-makers, associations, universities, and research institutions.

It is in keeping with our philosophy to be in discussion with all stakeholders who have an interest on the production of the future. That is why we cultivate contacts in all sectors of society to ensure the progress of our research and development in terms of useful content. We are well networked with major organizations such as vdma, Hannover Messe, zvei, din, plattform Industrie 4.0 etc., so that our research projects are always up to date with the latest relevant discussions.