Digital urban production: how does Industry 4.0 reconfigure productive value creation in urban contexts?

Figures & data

Figure 1. Case selection procedures.

Source: Authors.

Table 1. Overview of the interviewed production firms and public stakeholders by groups of cities.

Interviewed organizations	Cologne	Düsseldorf	Aachen	Dortmund	Duisburg	Bergisch cities	Total
Abbreviations (used for quotations)	C	D	A	Do	Du	R, S, V, W
Production firms (Case n)	4	2	3	2	2	5	18
Chambers of commerce (Com)	1	1	1	1	1	1	6
Chambers of crafts (Cra)	1	1	1	1			4
Trade unions (Un)	1	1	1	1		1	5
Economic development (EDev)	1	1	1	1	1	3	8
Further stakeholders^a		1	1				2
Total	8	7	8	6	4	10	43

Note: ^aFurther stakeholders: Research Institute; and Association of German Engineers (VDI).

Table 2. Information on investigated digital urban production firms.

Case	City	Year^a	Employees	Urban location	Business description
1	Cologne	2010	18	Urban core; mixed-use area	Development and production of complex objects
2	Cologne	2013	3	Urban core; residential-use area	Scanning and production of digital objects
3	Düsseldorf	2015	15	Urban core; commercial-use area	Development and prototyping of Internet-of-Things devices
4	Düsseldorf	2015	12	Urban core; mixed-use area	Development and production of Industry 4.0 devices
5	Aachen	2015	4	Urban core; residential-use area	Production of laser-cut objects
6	Aachen	1964^b	10	Urban core. residential-use area	Production and prototyping of electronic retrofit solutions
7	Dortmund	2018	13	Urban core; residential-use area	Development and prototyping of Internet-of-Things devices
8	Duisburg	2010	6	Urban core; residential-use area	Development and production of custom-made prototypes
9	Wuppertal	2013	17	Urban core; mixed-use area	Production and prototyping of custom-made shapes
10	Remscheid	2016	4	Urban core; industrial-use area	Development and production of custom-made solutions

Notes: ^aYear of establishment.

^b In the 2000s, case 6 restructured, relocating to an urban core location; it was therefore included in the sample.

Sources: Interview data and published firm data (as of 2018).

Figure 2. Conceptual juxtaposition of (a) the linear value chain organization of traditional manufacturing; and (b) circular productive value creation of digital urban production.

Sources: Figure 2(a) is partly adapted from Mudambi (2008); and authors.

Figure 3. Integrated conceptual model of digital urban production.

Source: Authors.

Mudambi, R. (2008). Location, control and innovation in knowledge-intensive industries. Journal of Economic Geography, 8(5), 699–725. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbn024

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DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author (H.C.B.) upon request.