Evaluation of investments in the digitalization of a production

As a consequence of Industry 4.0, many companies feel urged to invest in their production. However, one of the main hurdles is the assessment of the economic profitability of such investments. This is not least due to a lack of methodical support. In a previous paper, we presented a method for collecting data for investment decisions. Based on this, we developed a business case calculator, which is presented in this paper. It uses the structure of the previous work and calculates the economic profitability to make the investment decision transparent. We show the application in a project introducing a manufacturing execution system.