Developing the industrial Internet of Things with a network centric approach: A holistic scientific perspective on smart industries

As people, organisations and society, we are undergoing a massive technological revolution which is increasingly determining our daily life and work. Networks form the new basis for postmodern society. Networks enable us to be connected regardless of time and place and to exchange and share information with anyone or anything we choose. In industry too, terms like the Industrial Internet, Cyber Physical Systems or the German Industrie 4.0 are in common use. This new stage of the industrial revolution will pose a challenge to all businesses and industrial organisations, requiring them to organise themselves and their production in a totally new way in networks around the world. New types of organising and organisations need to be developed and implemented. Not only can such new forms no longer be focused on direct control over the execution or checking of available information, they must actually be aimed at the self-steering and self-organisation of small and autonomous organisational components within the network. Living, thinking, working, producing and creating in networks thus requires a fundamental change to the perspective with which we currently organise, produce or regard ourselves as people within the networks which have arisen almost self-evidently around us.