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Institute
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.
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.
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.
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.
European machinery and equipment manufacturers face multiple logistical challenges in their daily business. Interacting in complex non-hierarchical production networks and thus living with the consequences of a lack of transparency, temporal instability, or imbalanced share of market power finally leads to an inadequate OEM’s delivery adherence which in many cases can be traced back to suppliers’ late deliveries.
This paper presents a framework for improving delivery reliability in non-hierarchical production networks by applying market mechanisms. Knowing the financial consequences of a supplier’s belated delivery provides useful information which can be applied in terms of financial incentives. The framework is supported by the results of a study which has been conducted by the authors throughout German, Spanish, and Italian machine tool manufacturers and their suppliers.
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.
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.
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]
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]
Industrie 4.0 is said to have major positive effects on productivity in manufacturing companies. However, these effects are not visible yet. One reason for this is the lack of understanding of maintenance services as a crucial value contributing partner in production processes, although scientific literature already highlighted the importance of indirect maintenance costs. In order to retrieve the unused potential of maintenance services, a digital shadow in form of a sufficiently precise digital representation is required, providing a data model for the value of maintenance actions so that asset and maintenance strategies can be optimized later on. Using case study research for process manufacturers, the first research contribution of this paper consists of 21 value contributing elements being identified. The second contribution is a reference processes model, showing seven major process steps as well as the required intra-organization interaction on an information technology system level. Therefore, it provides the base for the missing data model shaping the targeted digital shadow of maintenance services’ value contribution. [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-57993-7_69]
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]
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]
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]
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.
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.
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.
The manufacturing industry consumes 54% of global energy and attributes for 20% of global CO2 emissions, demonstrating the industry’s role as global driver of climate change. Therefore, reducing its carbon footprint has become a major challenge as its current energy and resource consumption are not sustainable. Industrie 4.0 presents a chance to transform the prevailing paradigms of industrial value creation and advance sustainable developments. By using information and communication technologies for the intelligent networking of machines and processes, it has the potential to reduce energy and material consumption and is considered a key contributor to sustainable manufacturing as proclaimed by the European Commission in the term “twin transition”. As organizations still struggle to utilize the potential of Industrie 4.0 for a sustainable transformation, this paper presents a framework to successfully align their own twin transition. The framework is built upon three key design principles (micro level: leverage eco-efficient operations, meso level: facilitate circularity and macro level: foster value co-creation) derived using case study research by Eisenhardt, and four structural dimensions (resources, information systems, organizational structure and culture) based on the acatech Industrie 4.0 Maturity Index. Eleven interconnected areas of action are defined within the framework and offer a holistic and practical approach on how to leverage an organization’s twin transition. Within the conducted research, the framework was applied to the challenge of information quality and transparency required for high-value secondary plastics in the manufacturing industry. The result is a digital platform design that enables information transactions for secondary plastics and establishes a circular ecosystem. This shows the applicability of the framework and its potential to facilitate a structured approach for designing twin transitions in the manufacturing industry.
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.
[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.
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.