Effective applied research is based on close collaboration between research and industry, which taking the findings of basic research on customer demands as its starting point, creates a new means for developing and marketing innovative products. What is more, growing demands for innovative and sustainable results of research and development are prompting the examination of global trends such as demographic change, growing megacities, rising energy consumption and increasing traffic and the resultant social challenges. These trends and increasing traffic in particular are giving rise to new fields of work, especially for digital technologies, as a social responsibility, e.g., in driver assistance and traffic control systems that increase safety. This paper examines a means by which digital engineering, virtual and augmented reality technologies can support the creation of sustainable smart manufacturing and smart logistics processes as well as on-the-job training and qualification and knowledge transfer.