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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.
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.
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.
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.
Die Verschärfung des Wettbewerbsumfelds produzierender Unternehmen und die als Antwort hierauf in den Fokus rückenden agilen Methoden vergrößern die Bedeutung einer effizienten Handhabung von Änderungsprozessen. Am Beispiel des Maschinen- und Anlagenbauers Ortlinghaus zeigt der Beitrag, dass eine Kombination aus ungeeigneten Änderungsprozessen und mangelhaftem IT-Support in der Praxis oft die schnelle und gleichzeitig qualitätsgesicherte Durchführung von Änderungsprozessen verhindert. Der Zielkonflikt aus geringem Zeitbedarf und hoher Prozessqualität lässt sich durch Anpassungen in der IT-Unterstützung reduzieren. Hierdurch können Erfolgsfaktoren für ein effizientes Änderungsmanagement gehoben und die Problemfelder der Workflowunterstützung, Informationsverteilung und Datenhandhabung verbessert werden. Zentrales Hindernis zur Adressierung der Erfolgsfaktoren stellt die aktuell zur Abwicklung von Change Requests genutzte Arbeitsumgebung dar. Der Beitrag präsentiert hierfür als zentralen Lösungsansatz die Internet of Production Infrastruktur. Das Potenzial der Internet of Production Infrastruktur im Kontext des Änderungsmanagements wird anhand von drei Anwendungsbeispielen verdeutlicht. Abschließend wird der Migrationspfad für Unternehmen bei der Einführung eines effizienten Änderungsmanagements aufgezeigt.
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.
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]
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.
Holistic PLM- Model
(2010)
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is a widely discussed topic concerning the increase of efficiency of product development in terms of time to market as well as customizing products to the different needs of customers worldwide adequately. Historically PLM focuses the early phases of the product’s lifecycle, namely the product development phase. Therein the roots of PLM are based in supporting the information logistics of product data: Consistent data sets should be available to all stakeholders in the different departments at all times. Due to the increasing product complexity PLM has to be extended in terms of the temporal dimension (not limited to product development phase) and systemic dimension (not limited to the information logistic aspect). In this paper the authors derive a holistic framework for Product Lifecycle Management by analysing existing integrated management approaches. The framework consists of four dimensions: PLM strategy, PLM process, Product structure and PLM IT-Architecture. The sustainability and benefits of the framework is demonstrated by applying the framework to the communication service provider industry (CSP).
Human behavior in supply chains is insufficiently explored. Wrong decisions by decision makers leads to insufficient behavior and lower performance not only for the decision maker, but also for other stakeholders along the supply chain. In order to study the complex decision situation, we developed a supply chain game in which we studied experimentally the decisions of different stakeholder within the chain. 121 participants took part in a web-based supply chain game. We investigated the effects of gender, personality and technical competency on the performance within the supply chain. Also, learnability and the effect of presence of point-of-sale data are investigated. Performance depended on the position within the chain and fluctuating stock levels were observed in form of the bullwhip effect. Furthermore, we found that risk taking had an impact on the performance and that the performance improved after the first round of the game. [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-39226-9_46]
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.
The planning and implementation of migration projects in global production networks is a complex planning task that is confronted with a dynamic global environment with highly complex interdependencies. Today's migration approaches are either large projects or isolated local
investments. As such, they are not suitable for simultaneously addressing interdependencies and continuity. This paper illustrates a holistic and continuous methodology for rolling migration planning and implementation in global production networks. Seven steps enable the transformation from the current state of the production network into a target state regarding internal as well as external dynamics and interactions.
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.
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.
Aufgrund kürzer werdender Produktzyklen und steigender Produktvielfalt werden produzierende Unternehmen mit einer zunehmenden Anzahl von Produktanläufen konfrontiert. Ziel aktueller Forschungsaktivitäten ist es daher, anlaufintensive Unternehmen zu befähigen, verlässliche Produktionsprogramme in kurzer Zeit zu erstellen. Lerneffekte sollen genutzt werden können ohne Diversifikationseffekte zu vernachlässigen. Zur Erreichung dieser Zielsetzung wird ein Modell für eine kybernetische PPP bei Produktanläufen entwickelt.
Due to shorter product life cycles and the increasing internationalization of competition, companies are confronted with increasing complexity in supply chain management. Event-based systems are used to reduce this complexity and to support employees' decisions. Such event-based systems include tracking & tracing systems on the one hand and supply chain event management on the other. Tracking & tracing systems only have the functions of monitoring and reporting deviations, whereas supply chain event management systems also function as simulation, control, and measurement. The central element connecting these systems is the event. It forms the information basis for mapping and matching the process sequences in the event-based systems. The events received from the supply chain partner form the basis for all downstream steps and must, therefore, contain the correct data. Since the data quality is insufficient in numerous use cases and incorrect data in supply chain event management is not considered in the literature, this paper deals with the description and typification of incorrect event data. Based on a systematic literature review, typical sources of errors in the acquisition and transmission of event data are discussed. The results are then applied to event data so that a typification of incorrect event types is possible. The results help to significantly improve event-based systems for use in practice by preventing incorrect reactions through the detection of incorrect event data.
Companies operate in an increasingly volatile environment where different developments like shorter product lifecycles, the demand for customized products and globalization increase the complexity and interconnectivity in supply chains. Current events like Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic or the blockade of the Suez canal have caused major disruptions in supply chains. This demonstrates that many companies are insufficiently prepared for disruptions. As disruptions in supply chains are expected to occur even more frequently in the future, the need for sufficient preparation increases. Increasing resilience provides one way of dealing with disruptions. Resilience can be understood as the ability of a system to cope with disruptions and to ensure the competitiveness of a company. In particular, it enables the preparation for unexpected disruptions. The level of resilience is thereby significantly influenced by actions initiated prior to a disruption. Although companies recognize the need to increase their resilience, it is not systematically implemented. One major challenge is the multidimensionality and complexity of the resilience construct. To systematically design resilience an understanding of the components of resilience is required. However, a common understanding of constituent parts of resilience is currently lacking. This paper, therefore, proposes a general framework for structuring resilience by decomposing the multidimensional concept into its individual components. The framework contributes to an understanding of the interrelationships between the individual components and identifies resilience principles as target directions for the design of resilience. It thus sets the basis for a qualitative assessment of resilience and enables the analysis of resilience-building measures in terms of their impact on resilience. Moreover, an approach for applying the framework to different contexts is presented and then used to detail the framework for the context of procurement.
Maximising economies of scale in individualised production is a vital issue for producing companies in high wage countries. A decisive enabler for this is the management of product and process complexity by systematic standardisation. Due to the strong and far-reaching impact of complexity on the value added chain, its management requires an integrative consideration of the entire product and production system.
The following paper introduces a methodology facing this challenge. The core element of this methodology is an integrative and complexity-focused assessment model. This assessment model has been validated experimentally by analysing key company data from more than 50 German toolmaking firms. Findings of this empirical investigation are presented in this paper.
Generation of a Data Model For Quotation Costing Of Make To Order Manufacturers From Case Studies
(2022)
For contract or make to order manufacturers, quotation costing is a complex process that is mainly performed based on experience. Due to the high diversity of the product range of these mostly small or medium-sized companies (SMEs) and the poor data situation at the time of quotation preparation, the quality of the calculation is subject to strong variations and uncertainties. The gap between the initial quotation costing and the actual costs to be spent (pre- and post-calculation) is crucial to the existence of SMEs. Digitalization in general can help companies to get a better understanding of processes and to generate data. For improving these processes, an understanding of the important data for that specific process is crucial. Accurate quotation costing for customized products is time-consuming and resource-intensive, as there is a lack of an overview of data to be used within the process. This paper therefore derives a data model for supporting quotation costing in the company, based on literature-based costing procedures and recorded case studies for quotation and calculation. Based on the results, SMEs will have a first overview of the needed data for quotation costing to optimize their calculation process.
Auf Basis einer systematischen Literaturanalyse wurden insgesamt 11 Kennzahlen identifiziert, welche die Grundlage zur Beschreibung der operativen Leistungsfähigkeit von Unternehmen bilden. Die Kennzahlen wurden in die vier Leistungsdimensionen Effizienz, Qualität, Zeit und Flexibilität eingeteilt.
Reliability-centered maintenance for production assets is a well-established concept for the most effective and efficient disposition of maintenance resources. Unfortunately, the approach takes a lot of effort and relies heavily on the knowledge of individuals. Reliability data in Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) is scarce and almost never used well. An automated risk assessment system would have the potential to contribute to the dissemination and effective use of risk information and analysis. The individuality of production setting, however, prevents current systems from being practically relevant for most industries. The presented approach combines ontologies to store and link knowledge, an information logistics model displaying the various information streams, and the Internet of production to take the different user systems and infrastructure layers into account. The provided model of a reference digital shadow for risk information and a detailed information logistics model will help software companies to improve reliability software, standardize and enable assets owners to establish a customized digital shadow for their production networks. [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-57993-7_2]
In the near future, tooling companies will offer their customers not just maintenance services, but complex remote service packages for their engineering asset management, which is the total management of physical – not financial – assets. The overall goal is to enhance the efficiency of the engineering asset, e.g. to reduce TCO, on the customers´ site by means of value creating partnerships. These partnerships may be, e.g. the classical output or reliability partnership, but also process optimizing partnerships or lifecycle partnerships. The process optimizing partnership offers, e.g. the optimization of the system’s performance or the output quality, an optimized ramp-up and restart procedure or optimization of the production process parameters. The lifecycle partnership, on the other hand, accompanies the intelligent tool-machine-system throughout the whole lifecycle, which includes, e.g. provision of spare parts during the entire usage phase, storing, refurbishment, recycling and even the support of relocation of production facilities. Intelligent remote services have great potential for realizing all these partnerships.
To realize such engineering asset-related partnerships, two major tasks have to be done. First, there has to be the intelligent tool-machine system, which delivers the information that is required for these services. And furthermore, this information has to be integrated into the maintenance processes, so that it is delivered at the right place and time and in the required form. Second, the activities and processes that are combined to the engineering asset-related partnerships have to be configured out of standardized service and process modules. Therefore configuration logic is essential.
Industrial companies face tremendous challenges to plan the resources needed to meet future market demands when implementing a PSS based solution portfolio. This paper deals with enhancing the PSS research landscape by presenting an approach to enable better resource-planning in PSS based businesses. In particular, a model is proposed which links resource structures with customer offerings. Linkages are implemented, which connect resources and their use in processes. The model contributes to better understand the complexity in resource structures and elements in the PSS and helps to better understand and describe the structural integration of resources in PSS. This is an important prerequisite for the planning of PSS and allows a qualitative and quantitative description of the service resources allocation enabling companies to build the competence needed to meet customer requirements. A case study based approach was applied for model development.
Outsourcing of logistics operations (especially transportation, distribution & warehousing) is one of the most viable options exercised by the customers to excel in their logistic operations. Despite the growing outsourcing of logistics services to 3PL providers, both the service providers & their customers are facing tremendous problems in synchronizing the business processes & analyzing the performance using common key performance indicators. There is a huge demand for an integrated approach to help 3PL and their customers better synchronize their business processes and have common goals & perspectives. Such integrated approaches often take shape of a process oriented reference model covering many diverse aspects related to the operations & controlling of any business. In this paper, an integrated reference model to support 3PL service operations is presented. The Logistics Reference Model (LRM) developed & validated in some 3PL service companies encompasses standard business processes, performance measurement system and best practices.
Assets of integrated production systems, especially in the heavy industry, are facing high requirements in terms of reliability and availability. In case of component breakdown, the operating firm is confronted with high costs due to downtime and loss of production. Modern maintenance concepts in combination with advanced technologies can help to improve the plant availability and reduce the downtime costs caused by unplanned breakdowns. Against this background, the research institutes FIR and IMR from RWTH Aachen University, Germany, are collaborating within the research project “SiZu”. This project deals with the integration of condition monitoring system and real time simulation to assess the condition of components and to support failure cause analysis.
The importance of social networks and, in particular, enterprise social networks in business contexts is increasing significantly. Regarding the prerequisites for a successful implementation of an enterprise social network, exclusively providing the technical infrastructure is insufficient. A holistic view that considers and integrates different perspectives is crucial for success. This includes technological, organisational and human aspects as equally important parts of the network. This paper identifies prerequisites for a successful launch of enterprise social networks and groups them along these three dimensions.
Nowadays, cyber physical systems support the improvement of efficiency in intralogistics by controlling and manipulating the production and logistic environment autonomously. Due to the complexity of the individual production processes, designing suitable cyber-physical systems based on their existing production environment is a challenge for companies.
This paper presents a new methodology on how to design cyber-physical systems conceptually to suit an individual production environment. Compared to existing design approaches, this methodology matches immediately the required functions to existing information and communication technology’s components insisting on the neutral assimilation of requirements.
Therefore, the requirement specification asks for needed functions in relating to offered functions of information and communication technology (ICT) components. The paper focusses the use case of implementing a cutting-edge mobile network technology into an existing tracking and tracing process.
In order to introduce load management in the manufacturing industry, some obstacles need to be pointed out. This paper presents a feasible approach on how to implement load management measures in companies. To do so, load management and energy management are explained and distinguished in a first step. Subsequently, the implementation method is introduced. Therefore, by using this paper, companies will be enabled to use load management measure and reduce their energy costs significantly.
More and more companies in the mechanical and plant engineering industry are transforming their business model and evolving from product to solution providers. Subscription business models play a key role in this development. They enable companies to enter long-term collaborative relationships with customers and thus monetize the potential of Industry 4.0. However, this development is not easy for many companies and is associated with numerous hurdles. One of these hurdles is the development of a suitable range of services tailored to customer needs. In this context, the bundling of individual services to service modules plays a key role in realizing new value propositions. In practice, however, companies often lack an understanding of which services need to be combined in what way to be able to realize new value propositions. Accordingly, the goal of this work is to identify relevant services for subscription business models, to cluster them into meaningful value-adding bundles, and to derive new value propositions accordingly. The new value propositions in turn enable mechanical and plant engineering companies to strengthen customer loyalty and thus achieve long-term economic success.
The complexity and volatility of companies’ environment increase the relevance of disruption preparation. Resilience enables companies to deal with disruptions, reduce their impact and ensure competitiveness. Especially in the context of procurement, disruptions can cause major challenges while resilience contributes to ensuring material availability. Even though past disruptions have posed various challenges and companies have recognized the need to increase resilience, resilience is often not designed systematically. One major challenge is the number of potential measures to increase resilience. The systematic design of resilience thus requires a detailed understanding of domain-specific measures. This also includes an understanding of the contribution of these measures to different resilience components and their interdependencies. This paper proposes a systematic approach for configuring resilience in procurement which enables the evaluation and selection of resilience measures. Based on a resilience framework, a resilience configurator is developed. The basis of the configurator are resilience potentials that have been characterized and clustered. Overarching approaches to design resilience and indicators to evaluate resilience are presented. Moreover, a procedure is proposed to ensure practical applicability. To evaluate the results two case studies are conducted. The results enable companies to systematically design their resilience in procurement.
To monetize the potential of digitalization in times of saturated markets, increased machinery and plant engineering companies are starting to transform the transaction-based business model into a customer- and service-oriented subscription business. Even though subscription offerings can create win-win situations for providers and customers, companies encounter significant difficulties in acquiring customers for this innovative business model. Historically linear acquisition processes focused on transactional product sales impede success. To identify key challenges and targeted coping strategies for customer acquisition we conducted in-depth interviews with 18 subscription managers and sales representatives from seven machinery and plant engineering case studies. In our research we uncovered four challenge dimensions: (1) lack of motivation, (2) missing skills and competences, (3) insufficient customer confidence and (4) transaction-oriented sales approach. Beyond that we derived four appropriate coping strategies (1) steering mechanisms, (2) human resource management, (3) trust building instruments and (4) systematic methodology to address them. These insights highlight the key challenges at the management level for customer acquisition that companies face when trying to initiate and sustain the transition from a purely transactional product and service business to subscription-oriented growth. Furthermore, they provide guidance how to cope with these challenges.
The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in manufacturing companies is challenging, particularly for SMEs that lack the necessary skills to develop and integrate AI-based applications (AI applications) into their existing IT system landscape. To address this challenge, the research project VoBAKI (IGF-Project No.: 22009 N) aims to enable SMEs to identify and close skill gaps related to AI application development and implementation using proper sourcing strategies. This paper presents the interim results from the second phase of the project, which involves identifying the tasks in the lifecycle of AI applications and determining the specific skills required for executing these tasks. The presented results provide a detailed lifecycle including the phases for the development and usage of AI applications, as well as the specific tasks that SMEs must consider when implementing an AI application. These results serve as the foundation for future research regarding the required skills to execute the presented tasks and provide a roadmap for SMEs to close skill gaps and successfully implement AI applications.
Gap Analysis for CO2 Accounting Tool by Integrating Enterprise Resource Planning System Information
(2023)
Detailed carbon accounting is the foundation for reducing CO2 emissions in manufacturing companies. However, existing accounting approaches are primarily based on manual data preparation, although manufacturing companies already have a variety of IT systems and resulting data available. The gap analysis carried out based on the GHG Protocol and an reference ERP system shows how much of the required information for CO2 accounting can be integrated from an ERP system. The ERP system can cover 20 % of the required information. The information availability can be increased to 49 % through additionally identified modifications of the ERP system. Integrating the CO2 accounting tool with other systems of the IT landscape, e. g. Energy Information System, enables an additional increase.
Based on the increasingly complex value creation networks, more and more event-based systems are being used for decision support. One example of a category of event-based systems is supply chain event management. The aim is to enable the best possible reaction to critical exceptional events based on event data. The central element is the event, which represents the information basis for mapping and matching the process flows in the event-based systems. However, since the data quality is insufficient in numerous application cases and the identification of incorrect data in supply chain event management is considered in the literature, this paper deals with the theoretical derivation of the necessary data attributes for the identification of incorrect event data. In particular, the types of errors that require complex identification strategies are considered. Accordingly, the relevant existing error types of event data are specified in subtypes in this paper. Subsequently, the necessary information requirements and information available regarding identification are considered using a GAP analysis. Based on this gap, the necessary data attributes can then be derived. Finally, an approach is presented that enables the generation of the complete data set. This serves as a basis for the recognition and filtering out of erroneous events in contrast to standard and exception events.
The mechanical and plant engineering industry faces a stagnation in the new machinery market and is relying on innovative business models such as subscription to overcome these. In this business model, individually customized solution packages are offered. The success of these models depends directly on the future success of the customer, making the selection of the right customers crucial. The aim of this paper is to identify the criteria that indicate the suitability of customers for subscription models. While there are individual descriptions of suitability criteria in the existing literature, there is a lack of comprehensive consideration of customer relationship, customer company, and customer market, as the extensive consideration was not necessary in the transactional sale of machines until now. Therefore, in this study, expert interviews are conducted with companies in mechanical and plant engineering that offer subscription models. The results show criteria that are used to evaluate customers in the six main categories of creditworthiness, market potential, benefit potential, feasibility, relationship, and sales effort. In total, 24 criteria can provide insight into the suitability of the customer for a successful subscription relationship. These criteria are intended to develop target systems that meet the requirements of different stakeholders in the customer and thus support the economic viability of these business models.
The successful use of Business Analytics is increasingly becoming a differentiating competitive factor. The ability to extract data-driven insights and integrate them into decision-making is becoming growingly important. The underlying technologies are evolving exponentially, the value proposition differs from simple descriptive applications to automated decision-making. Existing approaches found in literature and practice to classify those levels only insufficiently mark down the boundaries between the different technology levels. As a consequence, it is often unclear which characteristics of the technology interact with the working environment, which can be described as a socio-technical system. Using a systematic literature review, this paper identifies the characteristics of Business Analytics and delineates three types of Business Analytics based on case studies. Thus, a starting point for the socio-technical system design and optimization for the use of Business Analytics is created.
Pricing is one of the most important, but underestimated tools, to enhance a company's profitability. Especially value-based pricing has a high potential to reach higher levels of satisfaction because it equates the needs of providers and customers. Even though, it is a well-known price model and promises higher satisfaction, many companies struggle to implement it. Especially the manufacturing industry is characterized by cost-plus pricing and competition-based pricing. However, especially for digital products these pricing strategies are insufficient. Therefore, this paper aims at exploring the design fields for value-based pricing of digital products in the manufacturing industry. To achieve this, the basics of digital products and value-based pricing are explored. Furthermore, an expert workshop is conducted that follows a framework for value-based pricing consisting of four consecutive steps analysis, price strategy, pricing, and market launch to capture the design fields. This paper concludes with limitations, and practical and research implications.
With the development of publicly accessible broker systems within the last decade, the complexity of data-driven ecosystems is expected to become manageable for self-managed digitalisation. Having identified event-driven IT-architectures as a suitable solution for the architectural requirements of Industry 4.0, the producing industry is now offered a relevant alternative to prominent third-party ecosystems. Although the technical components are readily available, the realisation of an event-driven IT-architecture in production is often hindered by a lack of reference projects, and hence uncertainty about its success and risks. The research institute FIR and IT-expert synyx are thus developing an event-driven IT-architecture in the Center Smart Logistics' producing factory, which is designed to be a multi-agent testbed for members of the cluster. With the experience gained in industrial projects, a target IT-architecture was conceptualised that proposes a solution for a self-managed data-ecosystem based on open-source technologies. With the iterative integration of factory-relevant Industry 4.0 use cases, the target is continuously realised and validated. The paper presents the developed solution for a self-managed event-driven IT-architecture and presents the implications of the decisions made. Furthermore, the progress of two use cases, namely an IT-OT-integration and a smart product demonstrator for the research project BlueSAM, are presented to highlight the iterative technical implementability and merits, enabled by the architecture.
The European Commission set out the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, which shall be achieved by fostering the twin transition - sustainability through digitalization. A keystone in this transition is the implementation of a prospering Circular Economy (CE). However, product information required to establish a flourishing CE is hardly available or even accessible. The Digital Product Passport (DPP) offers a solution to that problem but in the current discussion, two separate topics are focused on: its architecture and its application on batteries. The content of the DPP has not been an essential part of the discussion, although access to high-quality data about a product's state, composition and ecological footprint is required to enable sustainable decision-making. Therefore, this paper presents a classification of product data for circularity in the manufacturing industry to emphasize the discussion about the DPP's content. Developed through a systematic literature review combined with a case-study-research based on common operational information systems, the classification comprises three levels with 62 data points in four main categories: (1) Product information, (2) Utilization information, (3) Value chain information and (4) Sustainability information. In this paper, the potential content structure of a DPP is demonstrated for a use case in the machinery sector. The contribution to the science and operations community is twofold: Building a guideline for DPP developers that require scientific input from available real-world data points as well as motivating manufacturers to share the presented data points enabling a circular product information management.
Companies in the manufacturing industry are shifting towards a more service-oriented business model. One major challenge of this transformation is the information exchange between the different stages of the product-service-lifecycle.
We extend the existing body of knowledge by conducting an empirical study in the German manufacturing industry, addressing the cause-effect relationship between 1) information gathering over the product-service-lifecycle, 2) data analytics 3) interpretation and use of new information and 4) distribution of new product related information and the impact of these four aspects on performance.
The analysis reveals five different success factors with a significant impact on innovation and operation excellence. The implications from our research can help to develop new and more practical oriented Lifecycle-Product-Service-System approaches on the one hand. On the other hand it enables companies to focus on activities leading to higher service efficiency. Creating new stimuli will transform their existing business model to a more service-oriented one.
The number of cyber-attacks on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is constantly increasing. SMEs do not recognize the attacks until the damage has occurred. Only then, they fight with measures to increase IT-security and IT-safety. Many studies come to the point that this refers to a lack of budget, expertise and awareness of the need for IT-security. There are many compendia with recommendations for action, but they are too comprehensive and unspecific to the individual needs of SMEs. In this paper, we present the results of a research activity on the gaps that address the challenges faced by SMEs. In addition, we develop a concept for a serious gaming approach that includes an economic perspective on IT-security measures and shows how SMEs can derive their own IT-seurity target state
Manufacturing companies are constantly increasing their efforts in the subscription business, also known as product-as-a-service business, offering usage and outcome based solutions (value-in-use) instead of transactional services and products (value-in-exchange). Customers are becoming contractual subscribers of the solution in return for recurring, performance-related payments. To address arising, inevitable challenges like (1) reducing customer churn, (2) increasing usage intensity and outcome quality, (3) ensuring the adoption of product and software releases as well as (4) fostering customer loyalty, leading manufacturing companies are setting up a new organizational, customer-facing unit, called Customer Success Management (CSM). This unit has its origins in the software-as-a-service business, operating next to established entities like sales, key account management and customer service. Since there are currently no holistic models for an end-to-end description of CSM-tasks in the manufacturing industry, this paper contributes to a taskoriented reference model, using a grounded theory approach, examining both manufacturing and software companies. Containing a reference framework with 8 main tasks, 17 basic tasks and 76 elementary tasks, the reference model supports manufacturing companies in adapting and customizing a company-specific CSM concept.
Industry 4.0 is driven by Cyber-Physical Systems and Smart Products. Smart Products provide a value to both its users and its manufacturers in terms of a closer connection to the customer and his data as well as the provided smart services. However, many companies, especially SMEs, struggle with the transformation of their existing product portfolio into smart products. In order to facilitate this process, this paper presents a set of smart product use-cases from a manufacturer’s perspective. These use-cases can guide the definition of a smart product and be used during its architecture development and realization. Initially the paper gives an introduction in the field of smart products. After that the research results, based on case-study research, are presented. This includes the methodological approach, the case-study data collection and analysis. Finally, a set of use-cases, their definitions and components are presented and highlighted from the perspective of a smart product manufacturer.
In the age of digitalization, manufacturing companies are under increased pressure to change due to product complexity, growing customer requirements and digital business models. The increasing digitization of processes and products is opening up numerous opportunities for mechanical engineering companies to exploit the resulting potential for value creation. Subscription business is a new form of business model in the mechanical engineering industry, which aims to continuously increase customer benefit to align the interests of both companies and customers. Characterized by a permanent data exchange, databased learning about customer behavior, and the transfer into continuous innovations to increase customer value, subscription business helps to make Industry 4.0 profitable. The fact that machines and plants are connected to the internet and exchange large amounts of data results in critical information security risks. In addition, the loss of knowledge and control, data misuse and espionage, as well as the manipulation of transaction or production data in the context of subscription transactions are particularly high risks. Complementary to direct and obvious consequences such as loss of production, the attacks are increasingly shifting to non-transparent and creeping impairments of production or product quality, which are only apparent at a late stage, or the influencing of payment flows. A transparent presentation of possible risks and their scope, as well as their interrelationships, does not exist. This paper shows a research approach in which the structure of subscription models and their different manifestations based on their risks and vulnerabilities are characterized. This allows suitable cyber security measures to be taken at an early stage. From this basis, companies can secure existing or planned subscription business models and thus strengthen the trust of business partners and customers.
The digital transformation is changing the way companies think and design their manufacturing environment. Both due to the increasing number of connections between IoT-Devices, tooling machines, and production lines and the phenomenon of the convergence of IT and OT, systems are becoming more complex than years ago. Organizational and cultural changes within manufacturing companies strengthen this trend and form Industry 4.0 environments and cyber-physical production systems (CPPS). As these systems do not longer stay alone but are connected to each other and the company’s outside, the size of the potential attack surface is increasing as well. Besides that, manufacturing companies, small and medium-sized in particular, are facing complex challenges based on lack of knowledge, budget, and time to understand as well as to interpret their current situation and risk level and therefore to derive necessary counter-measures. Efficient as well as pragmatic tools and methods for these companies do not exist. This paper shows a research approach in which the company-specific set-up of Industry 4.0 environment and CPPS is characterized by its potential vulnerabilities. This enables companies to evaluate their risk potential before setting up this kind of environments and to undJo,erstand the potential consequences more precisely. By doing so, companies can derive and prioritize important counter-measures and so to strengthen their level of cyber-security efficiently. This will decrease the number of cyber-security attacks and increase the company’s competitiveness.
Manufacturing companies face the challenge of managing vast amounts of unstructured data generated by various sources such as social media, customer feedback, product reviews, and supplier data. Text-mining technology, a branch of data mining and natural language processing, provides a solution to extract valuable insights from unstructured data, enabling manufacturing companies to make informed decisions and improve their processes. Despite the potential benefits of text mining technology, many manufacturing companies struggle to implement use cases due to various reasons. Therefore, the project VoBAKI (IGF-Project No.: 22009 N) aims to enable manufacturing companies to identify and implement text mining use cases in their processes and decision-making processes. The paper presents an analysis of text mining use cases in manufacturing companies using Mayring's content analysis and case study research. The study aims to explore how text mining technology can be effectively used in improving production processes and decision-making in manufacturing companies.
Reinforced through the pandemic and shaped by digitalization, today's professional working environment is in a state of transformation. Working remotely has become a vital component of many professions' regular routines. The design of remote work environments presents challenges to organizations of all sizes. By providing a classification, this paper reveals a comprehensive understanding of the fields of design to be considered to establish lasting remote work concepts in organizations. A hierarchical classification with four dimensions consisting of human, technology, organization, and culture, seven design elements and, twenty design parameters indicates to organizations the fields of design that need to be examined. To satisfy both the theoretical foundation and the practical application, design elements are derived by implementing a systematic review of the literature that represents key areas of interest for remote work. Additionally, these are verified and complemented by a dedicated case study research to incorporate practice-oriented design parameters.
Companies in the manufacturing sector are confronted with an increasingly dynamic environment. Thus, corporate processes and, consequently, the supporting IT landscape must change. This need is not yet fully met in the development of information systems. While best-of-breed approaches are available, monolithic systems that no longer meet the manufacturing industry's requirements are still prevalent in practical use. A modular structure of IT landscapes could combine the advantages of individual and standard information systems and meet the need for adaptability. At present, however, there is no established standard for the modular design of IT landscapes in the field of manufacturing companies' information systems. This paper presents different ways of the modular design of IT landscapes and information systems and analyzes their objects of modularization. For this purpose, a systematic literature research is carried out in the subject area of software and modularization. Starting from the V-model as a reference model, a framework for different levels of modularization was developed by identifying that most scientific approaches carry out modularization at the data structure-based and source code-based levels. Only a few sources address the consideration of modularization at the level of the software environment-based and software function-based level. In particular, no domain-specific application of these levels of modularization, e.g., for manufacturing, was identified. (Literature base: https://epub.fir.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2704)