"About the skilled workers: We do this very rigorously - a very simple principle. We simply educate them. We get the students enthusiastic about their subject. With their own projects, company start-ups. When there's fire, when there's enthusiasm, they get going and do something. We need these people who are on fire and go out full of fire."
Prof. Dr. Sepp Hochreiter, Head of Institute for Machine Learning at University of Linz
"In principle, a more industry-friendly policy should be pursued. And that has many aspects. For example, that we don't employ the few skilled workers we still have to comply with too many regulations."
Stephan Mayer, CEO Machine Tools at TRUMPF
"We need a different culture of failure. That we are prepared to make mistakes and rebuild the people who make mistakes."
Joachim Hoedtke, CEO Hoedtke GmbH & Co. KG
"What I've noticed in the different countries is that Germany is actually not that well digitized."
Carl Berlo, CEO 247TailorSteel
"As an SME, we have other challenges. Small SMEs are characterized by diversity and specialization. This means that we don't have millions of units or recurring processes, especially in production. And that's where AI has an extreme strength.”
Florian Lendner, CEO GFH GmbH
"I think we are much more innovative than we give ourselves credit for. And I would sometimes like us to get out there a little more with our chests out."
Prof. Dr. Katharina Hölzle, Director of the Institute for Human Factors and Technology Management at the University of Stuttgart and Director of Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering
"If a smart engineer who knows these tools of the trade and has enough good data available and knows the process and what the customer wants, they can put together very high-quality software relatively quickly. That gives us hope. The head of NVIDIA has said that we are now all becoming software developers.”
Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thomas Bauernhansl, Director of Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation and Director of the Institute of Industrial Manufacturing and Management at the University of Stuttgart
"Sustainability is not just ecological, it involves three dimensions. Economic, social and ecological. And the ecological dimension only works if the economic dimension is also right."
Moritz Weil, Head of Organizational Development and Strategy at Weil Technology
"We have now covered almost every hall roof surface and in recent weeks we have even covered some of the fronts with photovoltaics. This is also interesting for our customers to see: It's completely normal. Part of our corporate DNA. At the moment, we are almost self-sufficient in terms of electricity, even on sunny days."
Martin Kreft, Head of Plant Development, Maintenance, System Support at Lindner
"Our vision is a highly efficient internal company structure, highly digitized, taking all the things from our employees where we are inefficient today. And - if we are honest - these are also things that we no longer enjoy today. So that we can focus our knowledge on things to be innovative."
Hagen Zimer, CEO Laser Technology at TRUMPF
The editorial team has summarized the most important answers from the panel discussions for you in a video.
