Biological Transformation of Manufacturing - From a Vision to Industrial Transfer - Interim Evaluation from the Perspective of Applied Research

The concept of the Biological Transformation of manufacturing addresses the field of tension between the increasing pressure to achieve sustainability and climate goals, economic profitability and the demand for more human centered value creation. The main approach in this concept focuses on developing new solutions to existing challenges through the convergence of the biosphere and the technosphere. Driven by this, numerous research projects and ideas form under this umbrella concept in recent years. Industry also perceives and pursues the concept with increasing interest. However, as with the digital transformation over the last two decades, research into the biological transformation is initially focusing primarily on individual stand-alone solutions although holistic solutions are necessary to, on the one hand exploit the full potential of biological transformation and on the other hand to be profitable to the production industry. For this reason, this paper gives an overview of the status-quo of the transformation from the perspective of applied research and with regard to the potential for a holistic transformation process in industry in order to achieve the climate targets using digitalization with simultaneous human-centric value creation.