The application scenarios describe how German industry perceives its digital future. They show which innovations – in technology, work organization, law and society – German industry wants to utilize on its way to this digital future. However, the application scenarios also indicate areas posing major challenges and questions, for example standards, research, security, legal framework and labor, and thereby provide a common framework for the Plattform Industrie 4.0 Working Groups.

Various discussions have repeatedly expressed the desire to further detail the description of the application scenarios and to work out the benefits for the stakeholders concerned. However, due to the complexity of the topic and the available resources, this cannot take place in the width, but only on the basis of selected representative examples. For this reason, such a detailing was elaborated as an example for one application scenario, namely VBS – Value-based Service.