Smart Engineering as Enabler for the 4th Industrial Revolution

The convergence and synergies of the latest ICT developments in the areas of embedded micro-devices, mobile communication, hardware infrastructures, as well as Internet and software technologies penetrate any artifact and product in our real lives. Traditional products are becoming more and more multidisciplinary, intelligent, networked, agile, and include product-related services. However, not only consumer goods (i.e. smartphones) but also industrial goods are becoming ‘smart’. Smart Product Service Systems (smartPSS) will dominate most industrial sectors in the near future and lead to the 4th Industrial Revolution. Thus, the engineering of these smartPSS will be of crucial importance for the competitiveness of industrial companies. This contribution summarizes the related ICT developments and describes their successive penetration of industrial products. It points out the need for new Smart Engineering approaches, which also use the latest ICT innovation and similarly smart features like smartPSS. Smart Engineering defines the highest level of requirements for engineering processes, methods, and tools.