The western "shop window" of the Digital Craft Trades Centre of Excellence has been opened under the umbrella of the Chamber of Crafts and Trades Centre of Excellence for Design, Production and Communication.
A Digital Craft Trades Centre of Excellence housed at the Koblenz Chamber of Crafts and Trades has officially launched. This new institution will have its focal point in Koblenz and provide targeted support to craft trade companies for the use of digital technology and the enhancement of internal company processes.
The Heinz Piest Institute for Craft Trades Technology at the Leibniz University of Hanover (HPI), the German Confederation of Skilled Crafts (ZDH) and four regional contact agencies (so-called "shop window Partners") will use their experience and knowledge in the field of training and guidance acquired over many years to assist the centre in its work.
The four shop windows are divided into North, South, East and West. The last named is domiciled at the Koblenz Chamber of Crafts and Trades. It has now opened for business and can be contacted via the Chamber of Crafts and Trades Centre of Excellence for Design, Production and Communication.
Digitalisation in the craft trades sector involves much more than production processes that need to be organised and executed in a computer-aided way. It also encompasses customer relations, order processing, the networking of craft trade and digital processes and the resultant enhancement of existing company sequences.
Speaking at the official launch event, Juliette Melzow from the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs in Berlin stressed: "The craft trades sector has good chances of benefiting from the digital economic world." The focus was on a "broad layer" that was set to grow massively over the coming years rather than on "selected isolated individual cases".
The ministry has said that 100,000 craft trade companies can and should take on a leading role as the pacemakers of digitalisation by 2025. As far as Dr. Alexander Barthel German Confederation of Skilled Crafts is concerned, this figure "represents ten percent of craft trade companies and is a must."
Participants in the launch event in Koblenz said that company structures were a particular obstacle to the implementation of digital goals in the craft trades. More than 50 percent of companies have fewer than five staff. This means that there are no dedicated human resources to deal explicitly with the introduction of digital processes. This makes it even more important that assistance is provided by specialist partners via institutions such as the Digital Craft Trades Centre of Excellence.
Within this network, the "western shop window" housed at the Koblenz Chamber of Crafts and Trades supports craft trade companies in the development of comprehensive strategies in a rapidly moving digital economic world. It provides guidance on new ways of thinking, and helps companies to overcome digital change successfully and to take advantage of the opportunities offered.
This also incorporates the development of new business models. "Customer wishes serve as the basis for the creation of new products and services," explains Christoph Krause, Head of the Centre of Excellence.
He also sees the intelligent digitalisation of all business processes as a crucial factor and believes that digital communication with customers, as shown for example in the online configurator used by a joinery business, offers enormous opportunities for the craft trade sector.
The Centre of Excellence works in conjunction with specialist partners from the fields of research and practice to provide craft trade companies in the region with specific help with process management and the deployment of IT for production.
The Chamber of Crafts and Trades Centre of Excellence extends over an area of more than 3,000 square metres and provides plenty of space for the piloting of new technologies and the implementation of its own ideas.
A mobile process office gives hands-on experience of the procedures involved and offers a realistic and highly practical induction into the topic of business processes and the associated management systems. It affords an opportunity to present the digital feasibility of solutions directly on company premises.
Many years of activity in the fields of research and consultancy mean that the specialist team at the chamber of crafts and trades are aware of numerous examples of the introduction of such procedures and enable them to have recourse to extensive background knowledge and networking structures.
The main focus at the western shop window will be on the provision of information and support for the introduction and use of modern information and communication technologies.
Alexander Baden and Kurt Krautscheid, Managing Director and President of the Chamber of Crafts and Trades respectively, describe the benefits for the craft trade sector in the region as a whole in the following terms. "The Digital Craft Trades Centre of Excellence offers the craft trade sector first class access to the technologies of the future. The centre in Koblenz represents a regional point of contact with rapid communication routes. Our experts can network and develop successful solutions by visiting companies and bring about digital improvement by engaging in direct discussions with users."
The Digital Craft Trades Centre of Excellence forms part of the main funding focus "The Digital SME – strategies for the digital transformation of company processes". This programme has been initiated by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) in order to drive forward digitalisation in small and medium-sized companies and in the craft trade sector.