Autor: Eberhard Abele

Lean companies naturally use milkruns to improve their internal logistics. Approaches for the design of such milkrun cycles exist, but specific conditions of production are not accounted for. By showing typical development steps of the milkrun design, the correct design-approach for the specific situation becomes clear. Moreover the levers for further optimization and cost reduction are pointed out.

Product piracy has risen to a serious problem for almost every OEM in the capital goods industry. Identifying the right counter-measures for creating and optimizing a holistic anti-counterfeiting-strategy helps to cope with these challenges. One of the most critical factors in developing such a strategy is establishing a cost/benefit ratio. A three-level selection concept helps choosing the right measures.

Companies have to determine which real net output ratio is the best for them. In such a case a company must decide which combination of product components and processes should be produced internal or external. There are no methods available to analyze the benefits of an internal or external manufacturing for products with high variety. However, due to the increasing number of variants and the low real net output ratio this question becomes more and more important. Therefore this article will introduce a method capable to support the make or buy decision for products with high variety.

Today, globalization is on the top of CEO’s agenda. Both, the unparalleled potential to grow into new markets as well as boosting the competitiveness of production are great opportunities making the globalization of production an imperative for successful companies. However, the risk and the complexity of that task require a dedicated approach to design, implement and manage the company’s network. Therefore, the article describes a basic project concept, major milestones and a promising scope of action for global production management.

The key phrase “Product responsibility” comes more and more often to the fore in the legislation of the European Union. In the near future manufacturers of energy-using products will have to take responsibility for the environmental impacts during the entire life cycle of their products, i.e. from material production and the manufacturing through the use until the disposal. For the analysis of this environmental impacts a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), based on ISO 14040ff derivatives, is used. It is scientifically acknowledged and ecologically established. LCA contains all energy and material consumptions as well as the emissions of each process in the product’s life cycle. By technical products, a data collection develops to a very complex and time-consuming task within the life cycle assessment. This is the so called is inventory analysis of the life cycle assessment. This article presents a reference model, which will be used for the modeling of the life cycle processes and ...

Although medium sized enterprises ascribe high importance to knowledge management and its impact on company’s success, they have rarely undertaken steps to introduce respective methods. Only a small share of companies applies selected methods, usually rather sporadic and without connection to corporate strategy or other management techniques. The reason lies in the lack of a tool for choosing the most suitable methods. Out of the multitude of instruments available for knowledge management, it is difficult to decide about a method mix fitting best to respective business processes, initial situation and specific demands of the company. This paper presents a concept to manage these shortcomings.