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UdZ 2-2021 / 39 S mall and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of German industry. SMEs face awide range of challenges, particularly with regard to digitization. There is currently no general trend toward digitization in the German stone and earth industry 1 . There is a large technological catch-up potential, mainly due to the structure of the companies 2 . For the mostly very small companies, which can only achieve low sales margins as is customary in the industry, the adaptation of new technologies means a high entrepreneurial risk 3 . The transition phase that occurs when switching to a new software solution inevitably entails a high level of additional work for the companies. This is often not manageable for small companies in parallel with their daily business. The many risk barriers and inhibition thresholds prevent the adaptation of new technologies and thus the expansion of digitization within the industry. A technological innovation and the associated value creation potential for the industry can be created in the form of a demonstrator of a platform solution. With the help of the demonstrator, SMEs in the German stone and earth industry will be enabled for the first time to generate knowledge about current capacity utilization and forecast demand based on internal and external data. The companies can anticipate rising costs and volatile prices with greater efficiency and thus act more economically. The demonstrator provides participating companies with a data- driven decision-making tool that can be easily integrated into their decision-making and business processes. The demonstrator creates incentives to optimize the internal data management in the companies and to initiate a disruptive digitalization. This induces the first step in the digital transformation process and lays the foundation for the transformation to a data-driven company. The first project meeting took place on April 16, 2021 with approx. 20 industry partners in digital form and formed a valuable contribution to the design of the first work package through the diverse presentations anddiscussions. This includes the benefit and potential analysis of a platform for SMEs in the German stone and earth industry. Based on the definition of the business ecosystem and with the help of an analysis of the value chain, amorphology and the formation of types of central players will be developed. A cross-consistency assessment ensures the unambiguousness of the roles. Furthermore, influencing factors of capacity planning as well as potentials and obstacles to be addressed for the successful implementation of a data-based platform are recorded in a structuredmanner in cooperationwith the project partners. Expert interviews ensure the transition to subsequent project steps, which focus on the optimization of data generationandprocessing in the stoneandearth industry. In the second research year, the concrete elaboration of the required functions of an operator concept for the PROmining platform as well as the company-neutral implementation, validation and testing of the platform demonstrator are envisaged. The cooperation of FIR e. V. at RWTH Aachen University with the Institute of Mineral Resources Engineering (MRE) at RWTH Aachen University takes into account the interdisciplinary aspect and claim of the research project. The bundling of FIR’s competencies with regard to digitization and business transformation and MRE’s comprehensive expertise and industry knowledge form the basis for comprehensive synergy effects that enable the development of a well-founded and validated demonstrator. Already during the project duration, an intensive transfer of results and exchange of experience with the industrial partners is planned through various measures. The committee accompanying the project is always looking for new participants. They benefit from a regular exchange between research and industry and the opportunity to help shape the content of the work, gain early access to the results produced and can use them in a beneficial way in their companies. ml · hb Literatur Baums, A.; Schössler, M.; Scott, B.: Kompendium Industrie 4.0. Wie digitale Plattformen die Wirtschaft verändern – und wie die Politik gestal- ten kann. KompendiumDigitale Standortpolitik; Bd. 2. Berlin, Oktober 2015. http://plattform-maerkte.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Kompendium- High.pdf (Link zuletzt geprüft: 23.07.2021) Börner, A.; Bornhöft, E.; Häfner, F. et al.: Steine- und Erden-Rohstoffe in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Mineralogie, Petrologie, Geochemie, Lagerstättenkunde; Bd. 10. Schweizerbart, Stuttgart [u. a.] 2012. Deloitte(Hrsg):Trackingthetrends2018.Thetop10issuesshapingminingintheyear ahead. London 2018. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/ energy-resources/us-er-ttt-report-2018.pdf(Linkzuletztgeprüft:23.07.2021) 1 Deloitte 2018, p. 12; O’ Neill 2017, p. 40 2 Börner et al. 2012 3 Baums et al. 2015