At the research and development centre Centrum Industrial IT (CIIT), cooperation between business and science is lived. Under one roof, companies and renowned research institutes that are independent of one another work and do research together on linking the world of information and automation. Through interdisciplinary and precompetitive top research at the CIIT, technologies for the factory of the future are developed and implemented in Industry 4.0 in joint research and transfer projects. Thanks to new kinds of cooperation, the innovation process and know-how transfer can be optimized substantially.