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Influenced by the high dynamic of the markets the optimization of supply chains gains more importance. However, analyzing different procurement strategies and the influence of various production parameters is difficult to achieve in industrial practice. Therefore, simulations of supply chains are used in order to improve the production process. The objective of this research is to evaluate different procurement strategies in a four-stage supply chain. Besides, this research aims to identify main influencing factors on the supply chain’s performance. The performance of the supply chain is measured by means of back orders (backlog). A scenario analysis of different customer demands and a Design of Experiments analysis enhance the significance of the simulation results.
The operation of CNC milling is expensive because of the cost-intensive use of cutting tools. The wear and tear of CNC tools influence the tool lifetime. Today’s machines are not capable of accurately estimating the tool abrasion during the machining process. Therefore, manufacturers rely on reactive maintenance, a tool
change after breakage, or a preventive maintenance approach, a tool change according to predefined tool specifications. In either case, maintenance costs are high due to a loss of machine utilization or premature tool change. To find the optimal point of tool change, it is necessary to monitor CNC process parameters during machining and use advanced data analytics to predict the tool abrasion. However, data science expertise is limited in small-medium sized manufacturing companies. The long operating life of machines often does not justify investments in new machines before the end of operating life. The publication describes a cost-efficient approach to upgrade legacy CNC machines with a Tool Wear Prediction Upgrade Kit. A practical solution is presented with a holistic hardware/software setup, including edge device, and multiple sensors. The prediction of tool wear is based on machine learning. The user interface visualizes the machine condition for the maintenance personnel in the shop floor. The approach is conceptualized and discussed based on industry requirements. Future work is outlined.
Nowadays, the market for information and communication technologies used for IOT-applications grows daily. Since companies need technologies to transform their business processes corresponding to the digital revolution, they need to know which technologies are available, and fit the best for their use case. Their inertial issue is the lacking overview of technologies suitable to connect their production or logistics. Hence, this paper presents a methodology to select technologies (and combinations) based on their functions. It differentiates between information and communication technologies, digital technologies and connecting technologies by the physical function and its role in a cyber-physical system. Depending on the use case, the applicability of every technology varies. Due to that reason, the paper illustrates a ranked qualification of the technologies for typical use cases, focussing tracking and tracing issues in the intralogistics of producing companies. The evaluation is performed upon a literature research, a market study to identify suitable technologies, and various expert interviews to assess the applicability of the technologies.
Pricing for Smart-Product-Service-Systems in Subscription Business Models for Production Industries
(2021)
In the production industry, subscription business models have the potential to create long-term relationships where a supplier provides a continuous value-oriented service to a customer based on digitalisation. Monetising this increase in value through pricing represents a central challenge for suppliers in subscription business. Unlike the current dominant transactional business, the focus of pricing is on the value-in-use of the customer (e.g. on the increase in output for the customer). In this regard, there is so far no pricing approach for practice that allows the linking of the performance data of the customer with the periodically charged price. However, in subscription businesses, such an approach is required to create win-win situations for the customer and supplier through continuous performance improvement. Therefore, this paper develops a novel process model for pricing of smart-product-service-systems in subscription business for production industries. This process can serve as basis for suppliers of subscriptions in the production industry to align pricing with the created value-in-use. In the long term, this allows companies to systematically develop their pricing to monetise the potential of digitalisation.
Manufacturing companies worldwide recognized the high potential of Industrie 4.0 in order to increasing production efficiency. Key benefits include creation of integrated systems, networked products and improvement of service portfolios. However, for many companies deriving and evaluating necessary measures to use Industrie 4.0 potentials represents a major challenge. This paper introduces the "acatech Industrie 4.0 Maturity Index" as an approach to meet this challenge. The development of multidimensional maturity model intents to provide companies an assessment methodology. The aim is to capture the status quo in companies in order to be able to develop individual roadmaps for the successful introduction of Industrie 4.0 and manage the transformation progressively.
In Germany’s transition to a more sustainable industrial landscape, electricity generated by wind turbines (WT) remains a mainstay of the energy mix. Operating and maintenance costs, which account for roughly 25% of electricity generation costs in onshore WTs make improvements of maintenance activities a key lever in the economic operation of WTs. Prescriptive maintenance is a possible approach for improved maintenance activities. It is a concept where asset condition data is used to recommend specific actions and has great potential for the operation of wind parks. However, especially small, but also large wind park operators, and maintenance service providers often struggle with the implementation of such a new maintenance approach. As a part of the research project ReStroK, a learning game has been developed to support the training and familiarization of maintenance technicians with the concepts and underlying principles of this maintenance approach. In this paper, the concept for the development of a learning game will be presented. Multiple scenarios for its usage and their corresponding requirements will be discussed and an overview over the game will be given.
The Impact Of Manufacturing Execution Systems On The Digital Transformation Of Production Systems
(2021)
With the focus of manufacturing companies on the digital transformation, Manufacturing Execution Systems are market-ready, modular software solutions for manufacturing companies to integrate the value-adding and supporting processes horizontal and vertical in the company. Companies, especially small and mediumsized companies, face high internal and external costs for the implementation of the MES modules. An advantage of MES is the possibility to implement the systems in a continually, module-by-module approach, with the benefit of timely distributed investments. By realizing fast improvements, companies can use the benefits for further module implementations. This paper proposes a maturity model to measure the impact of an MES on the digital transformation of the company’s production systems. The model fulfils two purposes. The first, companies can measure the impact based on the difference between its current maturity index and the potential index of an implemented MES. The second is, the user can identify what impact an MES has in general on the digital transformation since the developed maturity model is derived from an established industry 4.0 maturity model. The development of the maturity model is based on the methodologies of AKKASOGLU and focuses on the further development of an established model. As an outlook, the application of the model will be described briefly. The proposed maturity model can directly be used by practitioners and offers implications for further development of MES functionalities.
Manufacturing companies (MFRs) are increasingly extending their
portfolios with services and data-driven services (DDS) to differentiate themselves from competitors, tap new revenue potential, and gain competitive advantages through digitization and the subsequently generated data. Nonetheless, DDS fail more often than traditional industrial services and products within the first year on the market. Particularly, companies are failing to sell DDS successfully and efficiently with their existing (multi-level) distribution structures. Surprisingly, there is a lack of scientific research addressing this issue. Since there are currently no holistic models for an end-to-end description of distribution-tasks for DDS in the manufacturing industry, this paper contributes to a task-oriented reference model for mapping interactions in the multi-level distribution management. Therefore, a case study research approach is used, to identify and describe the interactions in the multi-level distribution management of DDS, as well as to develop a regulatory framework for MFRs and their multi-level distribution management. This research uses the established theoretical framework of Service-Dominant-Logic to address the co-creation in multi-level distribution management of DDS. As a result, this paper identifies different interaction variants as well as the need for a new management function with 4 main and 14 basic tasks.
Task-Specific Decision Support Systems in Multi-Level Production Systems based on the digital shadow
(2019)
Due to the increasing spread of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) suitable for shop floors, the production environment can more easily be digitally connected to the various decision making levels of a production system. This connectivity as well as an increasing availability of high-resolution feedback data, can be used for decision support for all levels of the company and supply chain. To enable data driven decision support, different data sources were structured and linked. The data was combined in task-specific digital shadows, selecting clustering and aggregation rules to gain information. Visual interfaces for task-specific decision support systems (DSS) were developed and evaluated positively by domain experts. The complexity of decision making on different levels was successfully reduced as an effect of the processed amounts of data. These interfaces support decision making, but can additionally be improved if DSS are extended with smart agents as proposed in the Internet of Production.
Service Engineering Models
(2019)
Since the field of service engineering emerged in the late 20th century, the service industry has undergone drastic changes. Among the reasons for these changes is the increasing digitalization, which has made it difficult for companies to successfully develop new service offerings. While numerous service engineering models are available to provide guidance during the design of new services, many of them cannot keep up with the requirements of today’s economic environment. The present paper examines the requirements that service engineering models need to meet in order to be suitable guidelines for the digital age. To this end, the introduction illustrates how digitalization has changed the service industry. Afterwards, selected service engineering models and related norms are presented. Finally, a set of requirements for modern service engineering models derived from best practices from recent years is introduced.
Industrie 4.0 is changing the industrial landscape in an unanticipated way. The vision for manufacturing industries is to transform to an agile company, in order to react on occurring events in real-time and make data based decisions. The realization requires also new capabilities for the information management. To achieve this goal agile companies require taking measured data, analyzing it, deriving knowledge out of this and support with the knowledge their employees. This is crucial for a successful Industrie 4.0 implementation, but many manufacturing companies struggling with these requirements. This paper identifies the required capabilities for the information management to achieve a successful Industrie 4.0 implementation. [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-65151-4_3]
This paper contributes to an assessment framework for valuing data as an asset. Particularly industrial manufacturers developing and delivering Smart Product Service Systems (Smart PSS) are comprehensively depended on the business value derived by processing data. However, there is a lack in a framework for capturing and comparing the Smart PSS data value with the purpose of increasing the accountability of data initiatives. Therefore a qualitative data value assessment approach was developed and specified on Smart PSS, based on an industrial case study research. [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-57997-5_39]
In recent years, the complexity of the management of supply chains has increased significantly due to the growing individualization of products and dynamics of the market environment. To remain competitive, ensuring efficient and flexible processes and procedures along the entire supply chain are of particular importance for companies. Especially in the inter-company context, decisions must be made as quickly and correctly as possible. To enable good decision-making processes data must be processed and provided in a targeted manner. Currently, however, the necessary transparency is often lacking within the supply chains. In this article, a software-based assistance system for decision support on supply chain level is presented that aims to increase the transparency and efficiency of the decision-making process. A concept for decision support on supply chain level is presented. This paper focuses on the conceptual linkage of relevant decisions and data. Therefore, indicators are identified and linked with the relevant decisions. Moreover, a suitable way of visualizing the identified indicators for each decision in a user-friendly manner is defined. These results are then used to implement the software tool.
The industrial food production is currently caught between the increas-ing demands of numerous stakeholders, economic profitability and the challenges of digitization. A solution to face these various challenges can be seen in the aggregation of data into higher-value, independent data products that can be of-fered and sold on a buyer's market. Large amounts of heterogeneous data are already available in the value chain of the industrial food production, e.g. throughout the data-driven harvesting of primary products, further processing by interconnected production facilities and the information-intensive product distri-bution to end consumers. However, the data is usually only evaluated and used locally for the optimization of internal processes or, at the most, within compre-hensive partnerships. The purpose of this paper is to identify new revenue oppor-tunities for current and future players in the industrial food production by using data as an independent economic good (data products). For this purpose, scenar-ios for the development and use of data products via Industrial Internet of Things platforms are developed for a food technical reference process, the industrial chocolate production and its value chain. On this basis, examples for different types of data products and their value propositions are derived. The results can not only serve food producers and relevant stakeholders but all industrial produc-ers as an input for the future, yield-increasing orientation of their business models.
Many ERP systems support configurable materials. Due to an ever increasing number of product variants the benefits of this approach are well understood. However, these implementations are not standardized. In this article we propose a new standard interface for the exchange of configuration data. This would lead to further benefits as systems as Advanced Planning systems could better use manufacturing flexibility while web shops as Amazon could easily integrate manufacturers of complex products with much reduced implementation effort.
Ongoing digitalization and Industry 4.0 enable the development of new business models due to the increase in available data and digital connected products. A promising business model type for the machinery and plant engineering industry are subscription models, consisting of products and services offered in return for continuous payments. However, subscription-based business models are associated with extensive changes in the traditional machinery and plant engineering industry, in particular, for small and medium-sized companies (SMEs). Established concepts for the development of value propositions and business models neglect important aspects, such as the integrated development and optimization of products and services across the entire life cycle or the data infrastructure. This paper presents a concept for a methodology to support SMEs developing value propositions within subscription models. Therefore, the systematic identification of customer benefits, the determination and prioritization of subscription relevant functionalities as well as the design of product and service elements addressing those functionalities are the main aspects on which the focus is placed on. The result is a subscription value proposition canvas for SMEs to address the impact of subscription models on products and services.
One major problem of today’s producing companies is to reach a high adherence to delivery dates while considering the volatile market situation as well as economic aspects. This problem can only be solved by using a production control that is optimally adapted to the processes. A good working, process-oriented production control is essential for being able to control the production situation and to ensure a high adherence to delivery dates. Data generation and processing determine the success of production control. Current processes and IT systems have several shortcomings in meeting these challenges.
The solution for this problem is the so called “cyber physical production control” (CPPC). It optimally supports the production scheduler in his decision making process based on real-time high-resolution data. With the help of data analytics, the production controller receives decision support over various steps. Due to CPPC, the overall goal of a high adherence to delivery dates can be fundamentally increased.
Understanding the Organizational Impact of Robotic Process Automation: A Socio-Technical Perspective
(2022)
Interest in AI-driven automation software is growing constantly across
all industries, as these technologies enable companies to almost automate administrative processes completely and significantly increase operational efficiency.
However, many implementation attempts fail due to a lack of understanding of how these technologies affect the various socio-technical aspects that are intertwined in an organisation. This leads to a widening gap between value propositions of automation software and the ability of companies to exploit them. For long-term
success, collaboration between humans and software robots in the organization must be optimised. Therefore, the social, technical, and organizational impact of Robotic Process Automation was investigated. Following a socio-technical systems approach, a model was developed and validated in a use case of a company in the mechanical engineering sector. Knowing the influencing factors before launching large-scale automation initiatives will help practitioners to better exploit
efficiency potentials and increase the long-term success.
With big data-technologies on the rise, new fields of application appear in terms of analyzing data to find new relationships for improving process under-standing and stability. Manufacturing companies oftentimes cope with a high number of deviations but struggle to solve them with less effort. The research project BigPro aims to develop a methodology for implementing counter measures to disturbances and deviations derived from big data. This paper proposes a methodology for practitioners to assess predefined counter measures. It consists of a morphology with several criterions that can have a certain characteristic. Those are then combined with a weighting factor to assess the feasibility of the counter measure for prioritization.
Since data becomes more and more important in industrial context, the question arises on how data-driven added value can be measured consistently and comprehensively by manufacturing companies. Currently, attempts on data valuation are primarily taking place on internal company level and qualitative scale. This leads to inconclusive results and unused opportunities in data monetization. Existing approaches in theory to determine quantitative data value are seldom used and less sophisticated. Although quantitative valuation frameworks could enable entities to transfer data valuation from an internal to an external level to take account of progress in digital transformation into external reporting. This paper contributes to data value assessment by presenting a four-part valuation framework that specifies how to transfer internal, qualitative to external, quantitative data valuation. The proposed framework builds on insights derived from practice-oriented action research. The framework is finally tested with a machine tool manufacturer using a single case study approach. Placing value on data will contribute to management’s capability to manage data as well as to realize data-driven benefits and revenue. [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-85902-2_19]
Viable Production System for adaptable and flexible production planning and control processes
(2009)
High Resolution Supply Chain Management (HRSCM) aims at designing adaptable and flexible production planning and control (PPC) processes according to the needs of the company’s supply chain environment. To reach this goal a model for a Viable Production System (VPS) has been elaborated and is presented in this paper. Based on the Viable System Model (VSM) developed by Stafford Beer current production systems are analyzed in terms of integrity. With the gained knowledge a complete recursive framework of a VPS is developed. The framework allows the design of a decentralized production system that meets all requirements of a dynamic environment. Flexible and adaptable PPC processes can be developed for each identified subsystem of the VPS. Hence, further research focuses on the development of process and control loops in order to assure the application of the framework. Exemplarily the decentralised control loop for inventory management is elaborated in a case study.
This paper addresses the challenge of modelling individual cyber-physical systems (CPS) for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in manufacturing industries. CPS are key technology building blocks for the implementation of Industrie 4.0. Especially for SMEs the increase of production efficiency and reduction of manufacturing costs through CPS offer potential to maintain their competitiveness and innovation capacity. Although SMEs perceive the potential of CPS, they often lack financial and human resources to acquire the necessary CPS-competencies as well as an overview of all the currently available technological solutions. To overcome this issue a matching platform will offer SMEs support in finding suitable CPS-components by letting them express their functional and technical requirements. The matching logic is based on a set of morphologies that encompasses the functional and requirement spectrum of CPS-components. The matching algorithm analyses the input for congruence of requirements and available technologies and suggests suitable technology combinations. This paper describes the methodology of the matching platform, and introduces the research work to define and to develop the technology morphologies. The presented results facilitate the selection and configuration of CPS for SMEs.
Towards a Methodology to Determine Intersubjective Data Values in Industrial Business Activities
(2021)
This paper contributes to a valuation framework for valuing data as an intangible asset. Especially those industrial manufacturers developing and delivering holistic digital solutions are limited in calculating the true business value of data initiatives. Since the value of data is strongly dependent on the respective use case, a completely objective valuation is not possible. This complicates decision-making on the internal side regarding investments in digital transformation, and on the external side to communicate existing benefits to third parties via financial reporting. Therefore, the target is to design a valuation framework that allows industrial manufacturers to determine an intersubjective, i.e., traceable and transparent, data value. In order to develop a framework that can be applied in practice, the approach is based on industrial case study research.
The shop floor is a dynamic environment, where deviations to the production plan frequently occur. While there are many tools to support production planning, production control is left unsupported in handling disruptions. The production controller evaluates the deviations and selects the most suitable countermeasures based on his experience. The transparency should be increased in order to improve the decision quality of the production controller by providing meaningful information during his decision process. In this paper, we propose a framework in which an interactive production control system supports the controller in the identification of and reaction to disturbances on the shop floor. At the same time, the system is being improved and updated by the domain knowledge of the controller. The reference architecture consists of three main parts. The first part is the process mining platform, the second part is the machine learning subsystem that consists of a part for the classification of the disturbances and one part for recommending countermeasures to identified disturbances. The third part is the interactive user interface. Integrating the user’s feedback will enable an adaptation to the constantly changing constraints of production control. As an outlook for a technical realization, the design of the user interface and the way of interaction is presented. For the evaluation of our framework, we will use simulated event data of a sample production line. The implementation and test should result in higher production performance by reducing the downtime of the production and increase in its productivity.
Supply chains form the backbone of modern economies and therefore require reliable information flows. In practice, however, supply chains face severe technical challenges, especially regarding security and privacy. In this work, we consolidate studies from supply chain management, information systems, and computer science from 2010–2021 in an interdisciplinary meta-survey to make this topic holistically accessible to interdisciplinary research. In particular, we identify a significant potential for computer scientists to remedy technical challenges and improve the robustness of information flows. We subsequently present a concise information flow-focused taxonomy for supply chains before discussing future research directions to provide possible entry points.
It is crucial today that economies harness renewable energies and integrate them into the existing grid. Conventionally, energy has been generated based on forecasts of peak and low demands. Renewable energy can neither be produced on demand nor stored efficiently. Thus, the aim of this paper is to evaluate Deep Learning-based forecasts of energy consumption to align energy consumption with renewable energy production. Using a dataset from a use-case related to landfill leachate management, multiple prediction models were used to forecast energy demand.The results were validated based on the same dataset from the recycling industry. Shallow models showed the lowest Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE), significantly outperforming a persistence baseline for both, long-term (30 days), mid-term (7 days) and short-term (1 day) forecasts. A potential decrease of up to 23% in peak energy demand was found that could lead to a reduction of 3,091 kg in CO2-emissions per year. Our approach requires low finanacial investments for energy-management hardware, making it suitable for usage in Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs).
Organizations, of all sizes, in every domain and in all geographies, are facing growing challenges to comprehend the scope of social media based technologies for their internal process use and for their networks. To assist the CIO’s and executives, FIR has developed a tool based framework to evaluate the impact of social web based collaborative technologies to support knowledge intensive processes. The FSI framework extends organizational spectrum to three categories of Formal, Semi-formal and Informal. The FSI tool places the emphasis on both business process and IT level.
The FSI framework and approach are validated in conjunction with industrial and research clients as test cases. Initial finding, reflected in this article, show a dire mismatch between the process exploitable potential level and organizational ICT profile. At the end, a set of recommendations are included for the organizational management to consider for organizational transformation.
Driven by different trends, such as digitalization, the number of companies aiming for successful business transformation is increasing, while new structures and systems are paving the way. Strategic agile management systems offer significant potential benefits given the increasing speed of the evolving environment in which organizations find themselves these days. To select and implement the appropriate strategic agile management system, companies need to understand the underlying theoretical principles to be able to select the most suitable for the respective company and to introduce it based on individual adaption. Within this paper, a morphology is presented to improve theoretical knowledge about strategic agile management systems. Creating a common understanding of strategic agile management systems and their current areas of application creates a suitable frame of reference for future research projects.
Since 2016, the “Digital in NRW” Competence Centre has been supporting SMEs in the manufacturing industry in designing their individual digital transformation. With an Industry 4.0 maturity assessment, we define the status quo of SMEs, derive SME-specific measures from this, develop a digitalization roadmap and accompany the SME transformation. This paper presents the results of the four-year SME support. By analyzing the results of all maturity assessments, potential analysis and design workshops, we present the most frequent and most effective measures for a successful digital transformation of SMEs. The result of the paper is an action guideline for SMEs to initiate their own digital transformation based on formalized experience.
Long-term production management defines the future production structure and ensures the long-term competitiveness. Companies around the world currently have to deal with the challenge of making decisions in an uncertain and rapidly changing environment. The quality of decision-making suffers from the rapidly changing global market requirements and the uniqueness and infrequency with which decisions are made. Since decisions in long-term production management can rarely be reversed and are associated with high costs, an increase in decision quality is urgently needed. To this end, four different applications are presented in the following, which support the decision process by increasing decision quality and make uncertainty manageable. For each of the applications presented, a separate digital shadow was built with the objective of being able to make better decisions from existing data from production and the environment. In addition, a linking of the applications is being pursued:
The Best Practice Sharing App creates transparency about existing production knowledge through the data-based identification of comparable production processes in the production network and helps to share best practices between sites. With the Supply Chain Cockpit, resilience can be increased through a data-based design of the procurement strategy that enables to manage disruptions. By adapting the procurement strategy for example by choosing suppliers at different locations the impact of disruptions can be reduced. While the Supply Chain Cockpit focuses on the strategy and decisions that affect the external partners (e.g., suppliers), the Data-Driven Site Selection concentrates on determining the sites of the company-internal global production network by creating transparency in the decision process of site selections. Different external data from various sources are analyzed and visualized in an appropriate way to support the decision process. Finally, the issue of sustainability is also crucial for successful long-term production management. Thus, the Sustainable Footprint Design App presents an approach that takes into account key sustainability indicators for network design. [https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-030-98062-7_15-1]
Augmented reality seems to offer great potential benefits in the field of industrial services. However, the question of the exact benefits, both monetary and qualitative, is difficult to evaluate, as is the case with IT investments in gen-eral. Within the framework of the DM4AR research project, an evaluation model was therefore developed. Based on group discussions and interviews on potential AR use cases, a list of monetary and qualitative benefits was compiled to form the basis for selecting suitable evaluation modules in the existing literature. These include an impact chain analysis in the form of a strategy map, a monetary eval-uation as a calculation of the return on investment, based on the assumptions of the use case as well as existing studies, and a qualitative evaluation in the form of a utility analysis. The outcome is an evaluation model in the form of a multi-perspective approach that considers the impact of AR in the four perspectives of the balanced scorecard (financial, customer, internal business processes, learning and growth). The results of the qualitative and monetary evaluation can be sum-marized in a 2D matrix to support decision-making.
Industrie 4.0 is all around us today: in politics, in the media, and on the agendas of researchers and entrepreneurs. Smarter, faster, more personalized, more efficient, more integrated – those are just some of the promises of this new industrial era. The potential, especially for Germany ́s mechanical
engineering industry and plant engineering sector, is indeed great, both for providers and for users of technologies across the spectrum of Industrie 4.0.
But there are still many unresolved questions, uncertainties, and challenges. Our readiness study seeks to address this need and offer insight. Because Industrie 4.0 will not happen on its own.
This study is intended to bring the grand vision closer to the business reality. We also highlight the challenging milestones that many companies must still pass on the road to Industrie 4.0 readiness.
The study examines where companies in the fields of mechanical and plant engineering currently stand, focusing on what motivates them and what holds them back, and on the differences that emerge between small and medium enterprises on the one hand and large enterprises on the other.
The results make it possible for the first time to develop a detailed, systematic picture of Industrie 4.0 readiness in the engineering sector.
The study concludes with recommendations for action in the business community, complementing the diverse suite of programs and activities offered by VDMA’s Forum Industrie 4.0. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the two sponsors of this project from the VDMA Forum, Dietmar Goericke and Dr. Christian Mosch, whose efforts played a critical role in making this study a success.
We are convinced that Industrie 4.0 can become a success story for Germany’s engineering sector. May our “Industrie 4.0 Readiness” study do its part in this effort.
Towards the Generation of Setup Matrices from Route Sheets and Feedback Data with Data Analytics
(2018)
The function or department of production control in manufacturing companies deals with short-term scheduling of orders and the management of deviations during order execution. Depending on the equipment and characteristics of orders, sequence dependent setup times might occur. In these cases for companies that focus on high utilization of their assets due to long phases of ramp up and high energy costs, it might be optimal to choose sequences with minimal setup time times between orders. Identifying such sequences requires detailed and correct information regarding the specific setup times. With increasing product variety and shorter lot sizes, it becomes more difficult and rather time intense to determine these values manually. One approach is to analyse the relevant features of the orders described in the route sheets or recipes to find similarities in materials and required tools. This paper presents a methodology, which supports setup optimized sequencing for sequence dependent setup times through constructing the setup matrix from such route sheets with the use of data analytics.
Due to Digital Transformation, also called Industry 4.0 or the Industrial Internet of Things, the barrier for implementing data collecting technology on the shop floor has decreased dramatically in the past years – leading to an increasingly growing amount of data from a multitude of IT systems in production companies worldwide. Despite that, the production controller still relies heavily on intrinsic knowledge and intuition for the management of disruptions in production. Thanks to advances in the fields of production control and artificial intelligence, potentials for the collected data for disruption management arise. However, in order to transform data into usable information and allow drawing conclusions for disruption management in production, the relevant data-objects, disturbances and alternative actions must be known. Thus, the decision-making can be supported, reducing the decision latency and increasing benefit of alternative actions. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to discuss the prerequisites necessary to perform a data based disruption management and the methodology itself, serving as an approach to allow companies to build a data basis, classify disruptions and alternative actions in order to improve decision making in the future. [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-28464-0_13]
High Resolution Supply Chain Management (HRSCM) aims to stop the trend of continuously increasing planning complexity. Today, companies in high-wage countries mostly strive for further optimization of their processes with sophisticated, capital-intensive planning approaches. The capability to adapt flexibly to dynamically changing conditions is limited by the inflexible and centralized planning logic. Thus, flexibility is reached currently by expensive inventory stocks and overcapacities in order to cope with rescheduling of supply or delivery. HRSCM describes the establishment of a complete information transparency in supply chains with the goal of assuring the availability of goods through decentralized, self-optimizing control loops for Production Planning and Control (PPC). HRSCM pursues the idea of enabling organization structures and processes to adapt to dynamic conditions. The approach includes the strengths of the existing planning models as well as the process of decision making in organizations. A precondition for this decentralized adaptation is the synchronization of the objectives of the several units or process owners. The basis for this new PPC Model are information transparency, stable processes, consistent customer orientation, increased capacity flexibility and the understanding of the production system as a viable, socio-technical system.
Data-driven transparency in end-to-end operations in real-time is seen as a key benefit of the fourth industrial revolution. In the context of a factory, it enables fast and precise diagnoses and corrections of deviations and, thus, contributes to the idea of an agile enterprise. Since a factory is a complex socio-technical system, multiple technical, organizational and cultural capabilities need
to be established and aligned. In recent studies, the underlying broad accessibility of data and corresponding analytics tools are called “data democratization”. In this study, we examine the status quo of the relevant capabilities for data democratization in the manufacturing industry.
(1) and outline the way forward.
(2) The insights are based on 259 studies on the digital maturity of factories from multiple industries and regions of the world using the acatech Industrie 4.0 Maturity Index as a framework. For this work, a subset of the data was selected.
(3) As a result, the examined factories show a lack of capabilities across all dimensions of the framework (IT systems, resources, organizational structure, culture).
(4) Thus, we conclude that the outlined implementation approach needs to comprise the technical backbone for a data pipeline as well as capability building and an organizational transformation.
Digitalization is changing the industrial landscape in a way we did not anticipate. The manufacturing industries worldwide are working to develop strategies and concepts for what is labelled with different terms such as the Industrial Internet of Things in the USA or Industrie 4.0 in Germany. Many industrialized economies are driven by the production sector and this sector needs specific approaches and instruments to take up other than those approaches we know from start-ups and ventures coming from Silicon Valley and other places. In this paper, we demonstrate an appropriate approach to transform producing companies in a systematic and evolutionary approach.
In particular, the objective of this paper is to provide results from two initiatives which conceptually build upon each other and are of particular relevance for the production industry. First, we present a global survey on the state of implementation and the future perspectives of the concept Industrie 4.0 from 2016. Findings from this study have forced parts of the German industry to heavily invest into a common approach to accelerate change towards Industry 4.0 in order to stay competitive in worldwide economy. This approach is presented in a second part.
Subscription business transforms traditional business models of machinery and plant engineering. Many manufacturing companies struggle to pull out the potential created by Industry 4.0 and make it economically usable. In addition to technological innovations, it is necessary to transform the business model. This leads to a shift from ownership-based and product-centric business models to outcome-based business models, which focus on the customer's value and thus realize a unique value proposition and competitive advantage – the outcome economy. Based on a case study analysis among manufacturing companies, this paper provides further clarification including a definition and constituent characteristics of subscription business models in machinery and plant engineering.
More and more manufacturing companies are starting to transform the transaction-based business model into a customer value-based subscription business to monetize the potential of digitization in times of saturated markets. However, historically evolved, linear acquisition processes, focusing the transactionoriented product sales, prevent this development substantially. Elemental features of the subscription business such as recurring payments, short-term release cycles, data-driven learning, and a focus on customer success are not considered in this approach. Since existing transactional-driven acquisition approaches are not successfully applicable to the subscription business, a systematic approach to an acquisition cycle of the subscription business in the manufacturing industry is presented, aiming at a long-term participative business. Applying a grounded theory approach, a task-oriented model for themanufacturing industry was developed.
The model consisting of five main tasks and 14 basis tasks serves as best practice to support manufacturing companies in adapting or redesigning acquisition activities for their subscription business models.
Changing customer demands lead to increasing product varieties and decreasing delivery times, which in turn pose great challenges for production companies. Combined with high market volatility, they lead to increasingly complex and diverse production processes. Thus, the susceptibility to disruptions in manufacturing rises, turning the task of Production Planning and Control (PPC) into a complex, dynamic and multidimensional problem. Addressing PPC challenges such as disruption management in an efficient and timely manner requires a high level of manual human intervention. In times of digitization and Industry 4.0, companies strive to find ways to guide their workers in this process of disruption management or automate it to eliminate human intervention altogether. This paper presents one possible application of Machine Learning (ML) in disruption management on a real-life use case in mixed model continuous production, specifically in the final assembly. The aim is to ensure high-quality online decision support for PPC tasks. This paper will therefore discuss the use of ML to anticipate production disruptions, solutions to efficiently highlight and convey the relevant information, as well as the generation of possible reaction strategies. Additionally, the necessary preparatory work and fundamentals are covered in the discussion, providing guidelines for production companies towards consistent and efficient disruption management.
Industrial practice shows a strong trend towards digitalization. It is not only economic crises, such as those triggered by Covid-19, that are reinforcing this trend. It is also the entrepreneurial urge to fulfill customer wishes in the best possible way and to adapt to new requirements as quickly as possible. Due to the advancing digitalization, the role of business application systems in manufacturing companies is therefore becoming increasingly important. The data processed in IT-Systems represent a great potential, especially for the evaluation of change requests in production. Through efficient change management, companies can record and process changes quickly. However, the necessary data basis to decide on existing change requests is still hardly used. Existing IT-Systems for change management coordinate the processing of change requests, but do not relate to data of operational application systems such as Enterprise-Resource-Planning. Therefore, a conceptual approach is required for the evaluation of change requests. This approach is based on an objective recording system that enables the transformation from the change description to an evaluation space. The paper presents an approach for the systematic transfer of requirement characteristics into the world of operational IT-Systems.
In recent years supply chain participants are increasingly suffering the effects of disturbances in transportation supply chains. Both, dynamics in consumer demands and global supply chains lead to a growth in unplanned supply chain events. These can cause from rather manageable disturbances through to complete break-downs of transportation chains, resulting in high follow-up and penalty costs.
Consequently, concepts for an efficient supply chain disturbance management are needed, preferably with a real-time identification and reaction to disturbance events. Therefore in the following paper the research results of the German research project Smart Logistic Grids with the focus on designing an integrated model for the real-time disturbance management in transportation supply networks are presented. This includes the introduction of elaborated classification models for disturbances and action patterns as well as an associated costs and performance measurement system. Finally, a procedure model for the disturbance management is presented.
Electricity generated by wind turbines (WT) is a mainstay of the transition to renewable energy. In order to economically utilize WT is, operating and maintenance costs, which account for 25% of total electricity generation costs in onshore WT’s, are a focus of cost reduction activities. Implementing a data-driven prescriptive maintenance approach is one way to achieve this. So far, various approaches for prescriptive maintenance for onshore WT’s have been suggested.
However, little research has addressed the practical implementation considering sociotechnical aspects. The aim of this paper is therefore to identify success factors for the successful implementation of such a maintenance strategy with clear and holistic guidance on how existing knowledge on prescriptive maintenance from science can be transferred to business practice. These recommendations are developed through case study research and classified in the four structural areas of Acatech’s Industry 4.0 Maturity Index: Resources, Information Systems, Organizational Structure and Culture.
For most industries, Artificial Intelligence (AI) holds substantial potentials. In the last decades, the extent of data created worldwide is exponentially increasing, and this trend is likely to continue. However, despite the prospects, many companies are not yet using AI at all or not generating added value. Often, an AI project does not exceed its pilot phase and is not scaled up. The problems to create value from AI applications in companies are manifold, especially since AI itself is diverse and there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach. One often stated obstacle, why many AI projects fail, is a missing AI strategy. This leads to isolated solutions, which do not consider synergies, scalability and seldom result in added value for the company. To create a company-specific AI strategy with a top-down approach, a generic but holistic framework is needed. This paper proposes a strategic AI procedure model that enables companies to define a specific AI strategy for successfully implementing AI solutions. In addition, we demonstrate in this paper how we apply the introduced strategic AI procedure model on an AI-based flexible monitoring and regulation system for power distribution grid operators in the context of an ongoing research project.
A large number of product-accompanying services in the machinery and plant engineering industry is based on the cross-company exchange of data and information. By providing services, additional sales potential on the manufacturer side as well as far-reaching product and process advantages for appliers can be reached. However, the necessary cross-company exchange of information is nowadays limited due to a lack of trust in the interacting partner and the applicable existing technologies, which results in significant losses in the terms of business potential. The uncovering of this potential now seems to be made possible by the use of the Blockchain technology. Through the key factors security, immutability, transparency and decentralisation, it serves as an enabler for cross-company communication and product-accompanying services. The technological implementation of a Blockchain can take on a broad spectrum of attributes, which can lead to decisive restrictions for the execution of services. This justifies the necessity for a qualified and context-related assessment of service-types-individual specifications and the resulting requirements on the system. Within the scope of this paper, different types of product-accompanying services are identified and analysed regarding their requirements for a Blockchain-based machinery and plant connection. This can serve as a basis for a qualified and goal-oriented configuration of the Blockchain.
The efficient dealing with the dynamic environment of production industries is one of the most challenging tasks of Supply Chain Management in high-wage countries. Relevant and current information are still not used sufficiently, to handle the influence of the dynamic environment on intra- and inter-company order processing adequately. Among other things, the problem is caused by missing or delayed feedback of relevant data. As a consequence of that, planning results differ from the actual situation of production. High Resolution Supply Chain Management describes an approach aiming on high information transparency in supply chains in combination with decentralized, self-optimizing control loops for Production Planning and Control. The final objective is to enable manufacturing companies to produce efficiently and to be able to react to order-variations at any time, requiring process structures to be most flexible.
Analysis of the Harmonizing Potential of Order Processing Attributes in Spread Production Systems
(2010)
The paper discusses an approach how to measure the competitive advantage of harmonized order processing data by making use of knowledge about the interdependencies between related benefit dimensions. Corresponding harmonization projects are all projects that strive for common structures in product attributes, classification systems or product structures. The main objective of the underlying research work is the development of a method for the estimation of the benefit potential of harmonized order processing data.
Increasing the energy efficiency and meanwhile avoiding unplanned maintenance breaks are keys for manufacturing companies to stay competitive in the future. This paper presents an energy saving and maintenance cost reducing approach for manufacturing environments. The approach describes first occurring types of energy wastage within manufacturing and characterizes them in more detail. Including additional external information, the significance of an identified on-going wastage can be determined. Based on the type of wastage and the significance; concrete recommendations for measures to prevent the wastage are delivered. The identified wastage facilitates detecting inefficient operating mode as well as wearing and malfunctioning at machines. By using complex event processing technologies realtime information can forwarded directly to the responsible persons to enable quick reactions to prevent energy wastage and unplanned downtimes. The paper presents an approach to identify detection and propose concepts for manufacturing enterprises. The information processing procedure is used for the implementation of two Use Cases.
Recent developments have demonstrated the challenges and impacts of disruptions in supply chains. Current disruptions especially affected procurement and have indicated a lack of resilience. Resilience aims at being prepared, decreasing the impact, and enabling fast reactions and adaption in case of disruptions. The systematic design of resilience in procurement is significantly influenced by proactive and strategic actions before disruptions occur. Thus, the procurement strategy plays a major role when increasing resilience. The procurement strategy is influenced by various factors. Thus, a data-based approach for its systematic design is required. Based on the vision of the Internet of Production (IoP), this paper presents a data-based approach for designing procurement strategies. The IoP is a framework that enables cross-domain collaboration by providing semantically adequate and contextual data from production, development, and usage in real-time at an appropriate granularity. The paper aims at analyzing the state of the art regarding the design of procurement strategy in uncertain environments and the identification of success-critical purchased articles. Based on this, an approach is developed that is structured along the action research cycle and uses CRISP-DM to further detail the different steps. Through the use of these frameworks, both practical applicability and objective evaluation are ensured. The proposed approach thus allows the systematic evaluation of purchased articles regarding supply risks and lies the foundation for the adaption of the procurement strategy. The resulting approach is the foundation for future practical application of different use cases. As one central use case for the presented approach, the paper introduces the textile industry and its supply chains.