Digital Twins and Product-Service Systems are just two of the recent trends in product development. While many presented approaches seem promising, their implementation often face challenges. This is especially true if existing approaches are transferred onto new applications. Diving into these topics this paper presents the basics but also challenges as well as synergies emerging between them. The objective is set, to move from specialised applications to broader approaches that can provide benefit to a range of applications and ease the entrance, particularly, for smaller enterprises.

The concept of Industry 4.0 has motivated large engineering sectors towards a common focus for improvement. Academics have capitalised on the common language, shared motivation and marketability of Industry 4.0. The potential and perceived benefits of Industry 4.0 are clear within academia and beyond. However, are engineering companies ready for the digital transformation associated? and, can Industry 4.0 be achieved by SMEs? In this paper, we investigate these questions through activity on project road mapping with 4 Scottish companies to reveal Industry 4.0 readiness and literacy.

The world consequently gets faster, so does product development. Therefore, the stock of development and simulation data increases continuously. Unfortunately, inexperienced users cannot cope with the rising number of simulation requests in the time needed. Digital Engineering opens potentials to support the users with newly developed methods and tools. In this contribution, we present a method to assist designers, inexperienced in finite-element simulations to perform an initial check of changed parametric designs independently, quickly and with support in interpreting the results.

Collaboration is common practice within design disciplines and beyond. Brainstorming, discussions, and prototyping tend to occur within the same physical space. The reduction of human interaction during the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted these practices. In this paper, we focus on the possibilities and challenges of remote prototyping of four student teams by combining a double diamond approach with tools to overcome remote work challenges. The results were analyzed to understand crucial tools, advantages, and obstacles. The key challenges and opportunities were then identified and examined.

This paper presents an approach for evaluating exoskeleton support concepts through biomechanical analyses on a musculoskeletal human model. By simplifying the support forces of an exoskeleton as external forces, different support concepts can be biomechanically evaluated for the respective use case without concrete design specifications of the exoskeleton. This enables an estimation of the resulting relief and strain on the human body in the early stages of exoskeleton development. To present the approach, the use case of working at and above head height with a power tool is chosen.