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Growing information systems (IS) often come along with growing IT complexity, because of emerging rag rug landscapes. This development causes rising IT costs and dependencies, which hinder the maintenance and expansion of the IS landscape. This article outlines the current research on published and presented methods to manage the rising IT complexity in a literature review. Because definitions of “IT complexity” vary a lot in literature, this paper also includes a definition of the term. In addition to that, it delivers a presentation of the used research methodology. Subsequently, it presents the findings in literature, highlights the research gap and – based on the literature analysis – presents the steps that need to be taken. A discussion of the results and a summary complete the article.
Growing information systems (IS) often come along with growing IT complexity, because of emerging rag rug landscapes. This development causes rising IT costs and dependencies, which hinder the maintenance and expansion of the IS landscape. This article outlines the current research on published and presented methods to manage the rising IT complexity in a literature review. Because definitions of “IT complexity” vary a lot in literature, this paper also includes a definition of the term. In addition to that, it delivers a presentation of the used research methodology. Subsequently, it presents the findings in literature, highlights the research gap and – based on the literature analysis – presents, the steps that need to be taken. A discussion of the results and a summary complete the article.
In saturated markets companies have to produce individualized products at low costs. In order to produce the high-variety of products efficiently and to be able to react effectively to order-variations, the production process structures must be most flexible and sustainable. Therefore adaptability of planning processes within the company and the supply chain is a precondition. Moreover an adaptive, decentralized control is necessary, which ensures a synchronized process by a flexible information network across all sub-processes. High Resolution Supply Chain Management aims at designing the production system according to the needs of the company’s supply chain environment.
To reach this goal a consistent research methodology has been elaborated. Based on the Viable System Model (VSM) developed by Stafford Beer current production systems are analyzed preliminary in terms of integrity.
With the gained knowledge a complete recursive model of a Viable Production System is developed. The recursive character of the approach allows identifying independent units within production systems on a detailed level. These units are meant to be self-optimizing control units, whereas the purpose of a unit is to independently optimize its part of the production system or production planning process. The architecture allows modelling a decentralized production system that meets all requirements of a flexible, adaptable production system. Thereupon, research focuses on the development of process and control loops for each of the identified units.
Each unit requires specific input information to be able to achieve a maximum degree of planning accuracy within its boundaries. For the communication of different units a flexible information flow has to be secured. Consequently an additional hierarchical and consistent set of objectives is necessary. Only consistent superior objectives can secure local optimization which yields to something like an overall optimum.
By integrating all results into a complete model of a Viable Production System, the adaptability of planning processes is reached due to the decentralized control of the different units, the consistent set of objectives and flexible information network.
[Conference paper]High Resolution Supply Chain Management – Enabling adaptable planning processes
(2007)
Increased competition has continuously led to a shift of production locations from high-wage to low-wage countries. To counteract this development the manufacturing of customized goods at the costs of mass production is necessary. This goal can be reached by solving the polylemma of production. High Resolution Supply Chain Management provides an approach to achieve higher planning efficiency and production profitability by increased flexibility and value orientation of inter- and in-company production planning and control systems. High Resolution Supply Chain Management aims for the establishment of information transparency within supply chains which does not exist in today's production networks. This will assure the availability of goods by local, self-optimizing control loops. Prerequisite is the creation of communication interfaces and data standards. By assuring the information flow and defined control loops High Resolution Supply Chain Management leads to an adaptive and self-optimized production system. In the last few years globalization led to a higher stress of competition of producing companies in high-wage countries. Cost advantages in production, like lower wages and social contributions, result in a relocation of production plants from countries as e.g. the United States or Germany to low-wage countries. Besides the lower wages the higher profitability is due to cost-effective mass production through economies of scale. At the same time customers ask for more individualized and lower priced products lined up with the wish of shorter lead times. Thus, companies have to gain the capability to adapt rapidly to customers requests. Short customer response times, high flexibility in production planning and -control (PPC) and manufacturing are necessary. Thereby, one frequently neglected competitive advantage of production locations in high-wage countries is the customer proximity. Industry now realizes this advantage and strengthens its efforts towards individualized production. A competitive advantage for high-wage countries can therefore be gained if individualized products are produced at nearly the costs of mass production. Thus, the resolution of the polylemma of production is underlying condition for saving labor in high-wage countries.
A subscription business model - that sounds like significant economic advantages. Therefore, the question arises: Why haven't all manufacturing companies established this type of participative business model yet?
The answer: The development and implementation of subscription business models go hand in hand with central challenges that companies have to overcome in the course of a business model transformation. This expert paper helps with this.
Industrial manufacturers faced and mastered several economic challenges and disruptive changes in the past. In particular, changes to business models emerge very slowly, whereas crises such as the banking crisis or covid-19 outbreak lead to significant short-term effects and are difficult to manage.
Over the past year, the world experienced an unprecedented form of disruption due to the global covid-19 pandemic. Compared to former economic crises, the implications of social distancing, lockdowns, and supply chain shortages triggered a rapid economic and societal disruption at a global scale, which impacted all sectors and levels of society.
For a holistic understanding of the impact of the current and former crises on industrial manufacturers, the Institute for Industrial Management at RWTH Aachen and BearingPoint conducted a survey as well as expert interviews to investigate the scope and type of affects for industrial manufacturers with a strong focus on service business. Based on this a framework to successfully address these new challenges and – also – opportunities was developed.
[Study] Blockchain
(2019)
Distributed ledger technologies, of which the best known example is blockchain, were expected to make their big breakthrough in 2018. Instead, the opposite happened. Cryptocurrency price slumps and delays in promising projects became symptoms of a new sense of caution. Organizations tried to use blockchain in unsuitable applications, and underestimated implementation hurdles. Despite this, the need for effective data exchange and data management in today's connected world remains high. Decentralized solutions, intelligent sensors, global supply chains and vast quantities of customer data will further stimulate demand for specialized and powerful data management systems. Blockchain therefore remains one option to enable a secure and interconnected world. The following five-step approach will help you harness blockchain's potential, avoiding common mistakes and overcoming implementation hurdles on your way.
Today, however, agility is seen more than ever as a critical success factor for companies. In times of an increasing degree of digital interconnection and minimum viable products, a mentality is entering the industrial service sector that has so far only been exemplified by Internet companies (e.g. Google): New products and especially digital services are developed in highly iterative processes. To this end, customers are involved in early test phases of development and provide feedback on individual functional modules, which – in contrast to the previous approach – are only gradually assembled into a market-ready “100 percent version”. But especially with the development of new digital services, companies must ensure more than ever that both the existing analog service business and the design of new digital services are geared to effectiveness and efficiency in order to meet the growing demands of customers and competitors.
To achieve this, companies must not only be familiar with the products currently on the market, but also master the entire product history, which in some cases goes back more than 30 years and varies greatly from one industry to another.
The FIR at the RWTH Aachen University continuously develops the concept and the principles of RoM further. It is already noticeable that the gap between companies that began preparing their maintenance departments for Industrie 4.0 years ago and those that are still struggling with the mere foundations of a professional maintenance organisation is rapidly increasing.
The first driver of the development sparked by Industrie 4.0 is the collection of and work with condition data. It is used to create a digital shadow of a service, e.g. maintenance measures in a specific
context. In the future, critical machine functions will be monitored continuously within production processes.
Based on these observations, the likelihood of machine failures can be predicted, which makes it possible to prioritize data-based maintenance measures. This means that maintenance activities, i.e. production plans, are based on prognoses regarding machine failures. By doing so, the currently existing separation between inspection, maintenance and reactive measures can be overcome, resulting in a holistic approach to maintenance. Maintenance specialists receive support from assistance systems, which give them access to all relevant information (e.g. machine history, spare part availability, proposals for measures, etc.). As a result, they can take on routine tasks in different areas as well and contribute to the increased flexibility of the production process. Although data is becoming an increasingly important driver of successful maintenance strategies,
maintenance employees continue to be central to specific tasks, machines and systems. In the future, it can be expected that they choose to become experts in a certain field and, ideally, actively share their knowledge with others within an open maintenance culture. Systems for interdisciplinary collaboration will be made part of everyday practice.
The maintenance department will be a center and distributor of knowledge in the agile company of the future.Only through the interaction of the outlined success principles, which amount to a paradigm shift within the maintenance department, the potential
benefit of maintenance as defined by RoM can be fully exploited, creating a long-term competitive advantage for those who consistently follow the path towards Industrie 4.0 in maintenance.
The transformation of the service technician into the customer's most important contact person and the company's most important sales channel requires a sustainable change of the entire company. But the effort is worth it. This insight has already reached many companies, but there is often a
lack of a clear idea of how much such a change challenges existing structures. A fundamental change of the company is only possible if all levels and departments recognize the necessity and have a clear idea of their future corporate culture. It is not enough to write down the new values of the company on a piece of foil, each employee must be able to understand and accept his or her own future role.