In December 2019, the entire consortium of the European large-scale research project "iDev40" ("Integrated Development 4.0"), led by Infineon Technologies Austria AG, met in Graz to take stock of the project halfway through and plan further work together. Professor Sophia Keil, Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Industrial Engineering, and Fabian Lindner, research assistant, represented the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences there as head of the "Skills and Workplaces 4.0 and Smart Collaboration in ECS Supply Chains" work package.

The outcome of the project work to date was positive. Together with its academic partners, in particular the "Human Factors" working group at HTW Dresden, and thanks to the support of semiconductor manufacturers Infineon Technologies in Dresden and Villach (Austria) and Elmos Semiconductor in Dortmund, Prof. Keil's team has already been able to collect a great deal of data through research interviews and observations. These allow initial conclusions to be drawn about changing requirements for skills, skills transfer, job profiles, collaboration (including between humans and machines), knowledge transfer and sharing and the optimal provision of information in production due to the use of digital technologies. The influence of increasingly automated and digitalized production on individual workers was also taken into account.

All of these factors were and are now being taken into account in the design of socio-technical models and systems that bring together both business management and the individual requirements and needs of workers in high-tech production. To this end, the close cooperation with the partners mentioned will be continued. In particular with the Virtual Vehicle Competence Center in Graz, work is now also beginning on objectively measuring and assessing the impact of the digital solutions developed as part of the overall "iDev40" project on socio-economic factors. In addition, the knowledge gained will be incorporated into the design of future study and training programmes in order to optimally prepare students and employees for the advancing digitalization.

The first publications from the project, led or co-led by Prof. Keil's research group at the Faculty of Business, Economics and Industrial Engineering, can be found at https://f-w.hszg.de/forschung/integrated-development-40/veroeffentlichungen - including contributions to relevant specialist conferences for semiconductor production such as the "Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Conference (ASMC)" or the "European Advanced Process Control and Manufacturing (apc|m) Conference".