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Future Lab "Production and Society" will broaden the horizon again in 2018

Future Lab "Production and Society" will broaden the horizon again in 2018

In the third year of the series, the topics are: absolute versus relative sustainability in production, the benefits of blockchain technologies, and "good work" despite increasingly complex work contexts. PZH staff and guests are cordially invited to the Zukunftslabor lectures. Launch date is 28 May 2018.

The opening lecture "Production in the field of tension between relative and absolute sustainability" will be given on 28 May 2018, 1 p.m. by Christoph Herrmann, Professor of "Sustainable Production and Life Cycle Engineering" and Head of the Institute for Machine Tools and Manufacturing Technology at Braunschweig Technical University.

What is absolute sustainability?

His lecture will deal with current changes in the normative model of "sustainable development": In recent decades, the focus in research and industrial practice has been on increasing "eco-efficiency" and thus on relative improvement of products and processes. In contrast to this are the findings of planetary boundaries and the viewpoint of "absolute sustainability". What does this perspective mean for production, research and development of processes and products?

Who benefits from Blockchain technologies?

On 12 July 2018, 3 pm, Astrid Nieße, Professor of Energy Informatics at LUH, and Lambert Heller, Head of the Open Science Lab at TIB Hannover, will show that Blockchain is more than the technology behind Bitcoins. In their joint lecture: "Using the blockchain to distribute energy, liberate knowledge - and simplify production" they explore some of the many new possibilities of blockchain technologies. In her research, Professor Nieße will report on the possibilities of using blockchain technologies in energy systems. Lambert Heller examines how Blockchain can be used to organize scientific publishing more openly and efficiently.

How can good work, meaning and profit be combined?

"Change, complexity, good work" is - on October 2, 2018, 3 p.m. - the topic of Dr. Simon Berkler. Berkler, managing director and co-founder of TheDive in Berlin, accompanies large manufacturing companies on their way into a different working culture. In many organisations, TheDive''s "Curators of Change" are confronted with "an uncontrollable complexity, constantly increasing speeds with ever decreasing power development, business models that no longer keep pace with the dynamics of change and the hunch that in a meaningful company it is not only about increasing sales and profits from year to year". In the Zukunftslabor''s last lecture for 2018, Simon Berkler explains how such a hunch can turn into positive changes.

All lectures take place in the lecture hall of the PZH in Garbsen and are open to the public. External guests are welcome.
Further information on the Future Laboratory and the dates for 2018 can be found on the production and society page.