We live in interesting times. Driven by the Internet, thereal and the virtual world are fast becoming indistinguishable.A new Internet of Things is already pushing theboundaries of science, commerce and society.Going forward, we will see industrial production characterisedby mass customisation of goods and services.Customers and business partners will largely be integratedin the business and value adding processes. Productsand high-end services will be dovetailed to become smartproducts.In addition to making industrial production more selfsufficient,it is important to develop smart monitoringand autonomous decision making processes in order toimpose near real time control and improvements on businessentities and entire value networks. The aim must beto develop new business models with regard to servicesand release the full potentials in production and logistics.It should be kept in mind – in fact, it goes without saying– that the technology needs to benefit the people and putthe individual user and consumer at the focus, in order toassist them with their increasingly complex tasks.When it comes to Industry 4.0 as well, North Rhine-Westphalia is amongst the leaders in Europe. Besides apowerful industry sector, we boast a science and researchlandscape that operates at the leading edge. The Clusterof Excellence - Integrative Production Technology forHigh-Wage Countries at RWTH Aachen University and thetwo Federal Government sponsored top-class clusters’Intelligent Technical Systems OstWestfalenLippe’ (it‘sOWL) and „EffizienzCluster LogistikRuhr“, both winnersof national competitions, clearly demonstrate this.So, you get to see for yourselves how good we are inNorth Rhine-Westphalia at getting things done.