The ongoing digitalisation of the maritime industries such as shipbuilding production, the entire ship system and maritime logistics are changing the technical challenges as well as the key competitive factors and business models in all areas of the value chain. In the maritime industry, a high degree of adaptability and competence is therefore becoming increasingly important for future competitiveness.

OFFIS is a partner of the Mittelstand 4.0-Kompetenzzentrum Bremen and offers active support in increasing digitisation skills. The Mittelstand 4.0 Competence Cluster Bremen informs in dialogues, company visits, regional forums, trade fairs, social media and newsletters, qualifies with web seminars and innovation workshops and demonstrates new digital applications in DigiLabTouren.

In particular, experts and executives in the innovation clusters Maritime Economy and Logistics, Wind Energy, etc. are to be sensitised, qualified and trained to become "digital ambassadors".

Within the scope of the Mittelstand 4.0 Competence Cluster Bremen OFFIS offers competent contacts and target-group oriented offers in the areas of digital traffic and human centered design. In this context, new forms of cooperation will be demonstrated, e. g. in Northern German ports, and digital value-added services, e. g. to enhance maritime safety at OFFIS in Oldenburg. For this purpose, OFFIS provides technology development platforms such as eMIR (http://www.emaritime.de) for the functional verification of integrated solutions, which can help to set new and promising technology standards and support innovation transfer - a particularly important step towards the structural strengthening of Germany as a maritime location.

The innovation and potential of digitisation for medium-sized companies in the maritime industry are shown close to implementation for companies and offer support in increasing digitisation skills, also as a representative example for cross-industry sectors.