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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.
Industry 4.0 and smart factories have brought significant advancements in manufacturing processes, particularly in intralogistics. A key factor which forms the basis for creating smart intralogistics systems is data. However, there exist several data-related issues that hamper the efficiency of the intralogistics process such as data unavailability, poor data quality, inconsistent data, or underutilization of available data. The challenge is to identify, categorize, evaluate, and solve these issues. Overcoming this will help organizations understand the most impactful challenges.
By analysing real-world scenarios and interviewing industry experts, the problems present within the intralogistics process that are caused by the previously mentioned data-related factors are identified. The identified issues are clustered, and the clusters are characterized. A literature review explores the existing solutions or approaches to overcome these limitations. Subsequently finding out if the identified problems can be solved with current technologies and approaches or further research and development is needed. Next, a framework is developed which will act as a guide on the classification, evaluation and prioritization of the identified challenges. In the final part, the framework is validated on an industry specific use case and its limitations and future scope are discussed.
This master thesis emphasizes the significance of data in intralogistics processes by identifying and addressing data-related issues. The outcome on one hand is state-of-the-art solutions for the identified problems and on the other hand is a framework which will support businesses in determining how to tackle data-related issues to gain most benefit with respect to efficiency, productivity, flexibility and quality.
The advancements in Industry 4.0 technologies have provided unprecedented opportunities for optimizing material transportation through various use cases that are possible through rapid technological advance. An important driver for the use cases is data. However, the lack of understanding, which
specific data, from which sources and in what frequency, slows down the implementation of use cases or even reduces their potential benefits. Companies lack the ability to prepare themselves correctly for a use case integration, especially from the data perspective (e.g. data availability, quality, integration).
Therefore, the goal of this thesis is to create a framework for evaluation of Industry 4.0 use cases in the materials' transportation with regard to needed data. The scientific approach employed in this research involves research and analysis of existing frameworks for description or assessment of use cases in different fields and industries. Following, specific use cases related to material transportation in the context of Industry 4.0 will be identified in order to find similarities in the structure and requirements
regarding needed data, and thus identifying common characteristics and key parameters. These parameters will then serve as the foundation for developing a framework that enables companies to systematically analyse and assess potential use cases for material transportation, considering the data requirements and its integration challenges.
The expected result of this thesis is the development of a practical framework that empowers organizations to evaluate and implement Industry 4.0 use cases for material transportation effectively. By providing a structured methodology, this framework will facilitate decision-making processes and support companies in identifying the most suitable use cases based on their specific requirements and
data availability.
The global automotive industry is undergoing a major shift from the combustion engines to a wide variety of propulsion technologies. It is further pooled with Industry 4.0, which has lead to a large volatility in technolgical innovations and ambiguity in the product life cycles.
This uncertainty has lead to a rapidly changing demands for the existing products and services. It is causing difficulty in planning yearly demand quantities with suppliers. In many cases, tier-1 suppliers are unable to actually purchase the quantities for which they reserve a particular capacity of its sub-suppliers during annual sourcing agreements. Companies need to improve their flexibility to adapt to such unpredictable market situations by preparing for quantity or product changes.
Before setting a target for a desired flexibility level, the exisiting situation should be assessed. Therefore, this thesis aims to develop a method to assess the flexibility of suppliers in terms of product mix, volume deviations and delivery compliance. A quantification model is derived, which will be applicable for a wide range of suppliers. The model will enable the comparison of different suppliers during new sourcing decisions, as well as the identifcation of the exisiting suppliers that have room for improvement.
Various factors that affect supplier flexibility are identified through literarure research and personal interviews with different employees having supplier specific roles within Rober Bosch GmbH. These factors are analysed through a ‘WHAT-WHY-HOW’ analysis and only those factors are considered which can be coherently quantified. Based on their significance in the overall flexibility, these focus factors are given particular weightages and then quantified for each suppliers using the available data. The resultant of the scored factors will yield a number that indicates the flexibility index for a corresponding supplier. The developed model will be tested using Robert Bosch GmbH as an example.
Um langfristig in einem Umfeld zunehmenden Wettbewerbs durch internationale Anbieter erfolgreich zu sein, müssen Unternehmen verstärkt regionale Märkte erschließen. Analog zur Automobilindustrie werden wichtige Wachstumsmärkte zunehmend durch Handelshemmnisse abgeschottet, so dass die Markterschließung durch Exporte vollständig montierter Erzeugnisse häufig ausscheidet. Um dennoch die Handelshemmnisse zu umgehen, hat sich in der Automobilindustrie die Completely Knocked Down (CKD)-Strategie durchgesetzt, bei der Erzeugnisse teilzerlegt in die Märkte exportiert und dort lokal endmontiert werden. Eine grundsätzliche Herausforderung liegt in der situationsgerechten Gestaltung der CKD-Supply Chain. Dazu ist in der Arbeit ein Teil einer simulationsbasierte Gestaltungsunterstützung mit dem Schwerpunkt auf 2D und 3D Simulation erarbeitet worden.
The Aim of this article is to provide a framework which enhances the existing scope of manufacturing asset management by specifically addressing industrial services provided by external suppliers as an integral part of today’s manufacturing structures. Existing research shows that sourcing industrial services from specialized service organizations establishes complex and unique interdependencies and links total production efficiency to the performance of the external service suppliers. Within the context of the EU-Project InCoCo-S - “Innovation, Coordination and Collaboration in Service Driven Manufacturing Supply Chains” a standard business reference model with key focus on operation and integration of business related services (BRS) in the supply chain has been developed. Based on the service type retrofit this paper aims on the one hand to present the modules of the reference model and on the other hand to explain how the model can be used to enhance the retrofit business.
In most European countries a structural change from a production dominated towards a service oriented society is progressing. Companies increasingly consider services as means to gain competitive advantages in a global competition. In order to provide holistic, value-adding solutions while simultaneously guaranteeing high quality standards, production companies increasingly join forces with external services‘ providers. Models, methods and tools for service development are rare and in most cases immature. In the context of virtual services‘ development this leads to a dual set of simultaneous chal-lenges: an alignment of systematic services‘ and product development and the coordination of distributed R&D partners. The objective is to provide a meta-process that identifies all steps and decision points necessary to successfully develop innovative services. It is a result of combined service development and virtual enterprises‘/ networks‘ research.
Industrial Service Providers (ISP) are exposed to constantly raising competitive pressures regarding both cost and performance aspects. The massive challenges caused by the current worldwide financial and economic crisis even intensified the need for process optimizations aimed at increasing the productivity of service production. To reach this goal the evaluation and elimination of waste in their production processes becomes a crucial ability for ISPs. This paper proposes a new approach for increasing productivity in service production processes using a generic measurement model for the detection and evaluation of waste. The model is based on established lean management principles, but tailored to the specifics of ISPs by adopting a customers’ perspective to track down and eliminate waste. The evaluation builds on an in-depth-analysis of particular types of waste in the industrial service production processes. Viewed from the customers’ perspective and taking into account the specific characteristics of services (e.g. intangibility, heterogeneity, inseparability, and perishability) and service production (e.g. volatile demand, a tendency to over-capacity, and limits to planning) the approach employs a service blueprint reference model to then determine the different types of waste in the various parts of the service production process.
One of the major tasks of operations managers is to boost uptime while simultaneously keeping budget. To meet this challenge they discover reliability-based management as strategic factor to improve performance. But which parameters are the key to “reliability excellence” and drive a company’s performance? What are the relevant levers to pull in reliability-based management?
To answer these questions McKinsey & Company partnered with Aachen University to launch a global reliability survey in process industries. Objective of the initiative is to provide a statistically proven picture of key factors that drive maintenance and reliability excellence. Furthermore benchmarks and best practices concerning overall operational performance will be identified. The study is based on a questionnaire-based approach which addresses all relevant departments within a company, complemented by best practice analyses.
This paper provides results of the survey. The results demonstrate that reliability pays off. Some unproven beliefs have been confirmed (e.g. a good reliability performance results in a low spare part inventory) but also surprises like a correlation between safety and performance were identified. The analysis also shows that structural differences like company size or geography do not influence reliability performance.
Due to shorter product life cycles the number of production ramp-ups is increasing, while customers have a soaring demand for more variable and individualized products. In the future, optimizing the production ramp-up will become an important differentiation criterion for companies. Considering the whole supply chain in the ramp-up process becomes therefore indispensable. This is what the presented research in this paper concentrates on. The intention of the research project is to develop a model of a supply chain in the production ramp-up stage. Through this model, approaches for optimizing the production ramp-up in the whole supply chain will be derived.
Further the research project concentrates on measuring the production ramp-up performance in the supply chain, showing the impact on economic and financial measures. The result of this research is an approach to align the tasks and objectives of Supply Chain Management with the tasks and objectives of ramp-up management in order to optimize the whole supply chain in the ramp-up stage.
The House of Maintenance
(2009)
In order to guarantee an efficient and effective employment of production equipment, it is essential to identify any possible potential for improving performance, not only in the production process, but also in supporting areas such as maintenance. One of the major tasks in increasing maintenance performance consists of systematically identifying the company’s most significant weaknesses in maintenance organisation and thus being able to implement improvements there where they are most needed.
But how is a company to tackle this important task? To answer this question, this paper describes an assessment and improvement approach, based on a capability maturity model (CMM). By means of this approach, the status-quo of a maintenance organisation can be analysed and its individual improvement opportunities identified.
Rebound Logistics
(2009)
Today, the flow of product returns is becoming a significant concern for many manufacturing companies. In this research area, three fundamental aspects of product returns need to be taken into consideration: First, companies become increasingly aware of the fact that product returns may offer an opportunity for enormous profit generation and for improving the competitive advantage of a manufacturing company when taking into account the accretive value of the products and technology. Second, the impact of green laws, legislative provisions and the increasing impact of a sustainable production management due to marketing aspects force companies to design and manage the reverse supply chain actively. Third, the importance of managing the reverse supply chains effectively will be enforced by the currently volatile economic climate. This paper outlines first results of designing a methodological framework for implementing an integrative reverse supply chain for manufacturing companies based on a type-specific Reverse Supply Chain Reference Model.