Autor: Egon Müller

Shaping intelligent production environments is one core element of Industry 4.0, but has progressed differently in the various branches. While concepts are well advanced in automotive, SMEs within textile industry still need assistance. As demands on individualization and responsiveness are increasing, a Smart Factory for textile SMEs must be designed. The futureTEX consortium therefor is working on shaping a textile Smart Factory and implements it prototypically by using demonstrators.

The Smart Factory concept describes the extensively networked production of industry 4.0, which affects the entire life cycle of a factory and, in particular, factory planning and factory operation. Both classic and more up-to-date factory planning approaches come to their limits through the new requirements. This paper identifies the requirements that are important for the future structural planning of factories and presents the need for a holistic virtual validation of the factory structure. Furthermore, a methodological approach is addressed for the solution of the challenges.

The technological and demographic change in the automotive industry leads to challenges for competence management. Increasing requirements with regard to professional and methodological competencies, combined with shortened innovation cycles, demand an increasing flexibility in employee trainings. The research project PLUG+LEARN aims at the development of reconfigurable solutions in competence development. Competencies along the automotive value chain are pooled in order to achieve a wide application of the results. This enables an effective cooperation between the actors of the PLUG+LEARN market place.

Maintenance is an important factor for the effectiveness of production processes. As the degree of automation and interoperation of production equipment is increasing, the significance of equipment availability and thus of maintenance is increasing. At the moment, maintenance and service engineers spend a lot of time in retrieving and preparing information. In many cases the data of business information systems is not or only partly available to maintenance engineers. In the future, resource-cockpits on mobile devices will provide maintenance and service engineers with all necessary information in situ. This will be realised interactively, with little effort and in the right context.

The layout planning represents a prime example of the interdisciplinary nature of factory planning. A comprehensive cooperation provides opportunities to involve ideas and experiences of as many people as possible, to exploit synergies, to realize a faster coordination of the planning status between the departments and thus improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the planning process. The development of more powerful computer technology and the increasing popularity of mobile devices (e.g. smartphones, tablet computers) provide new potentials and possibilities for the use of Augmented Reality (AR) in the application field of factory planning. This paper describes an approach for the application of AR in participative layout planning.

Increasingly complex and technology-driven markets require a broad knowledge and qualifications of professionals in manufacturing companies. The range of needs for long-term competitive knowledge adaptation is versatile. Especially in view of the forecasted lack of qualified young people, it is more important to sustainably educate existing staff. Thus it is necessary to create sustainable and innovative learning environments which provide the necessary knowledge, qualifications and skills. An adequate and consistent concept represents the advanced Learning Factory (aLF) and is discussed in this paper.

Planning teams are faced with increasing demands concerning their work. The variety of products, globalization, agility or sustainable manufacturing leads to increasingly complex planning processes. Furthermore, planning teams are distributed around the globe and are affected by a growing number of communication interfaces. Building upon this, this paper introduces a particular serious play method. The method intends to improve communication in planning teams and to support knowledge work in general. Furthermore, it tries to foster close collaboration among the planning team members using an interdisciplinary workshop setting and intense communication. Two case studies are utilized to validate the method’s supporting functions. The findings indicate that the method supports communication and knowledge work. Nonetheless, furthermore research is necessary to determine quantitative effects and additional application scenarios.

The lack of information concerning energy flows can be seen as a significant barrier to increase energy efficiency in an industry. The extension of energy measurement systems often fails due to the difficult appraisal of expected reflux. The suggested model presents a way to overcome this barrier by forecasting potentials and including soft facts into the appraisal as well. Learning effects objectify the presented model through time and make it more stable. As a result an expected net present value can be calculated and used to estimate the benefit of installing a measurement device into a given technical system.

Companies are constantly exposed to radical change. One approach to addressing these challenges is changeable production systems. Changeable production systems can only be as adaptable as the human being who is working in them. An integrated view of the dimensions of human beings, technology and organization is essential in this context. The Institute of Industrial Management and Factory Systems has wide experience and competences in the field of research of adaptable production. This is supported by the lab area of the IBF, called IBF-Lab, which allows interdisciplinary research. Practical application is demonstrated using an example of a research project.

The purpose of this paper is to show how corporate strategy can be aligned with the production system of an enterprise to derive an operations strategy. Consequently, the operations strategy is employed to define prospective needs of agility. The research methodology builds upon action research that is realized in a long-term approach with two joint manufacturing companies. Both can be classified as small and medium sized enterprises (SME). The preliminary findings underline the importance of a holistic view towards agility emphasizing organization and people as major drivers of agility. These drivers are addressed by means of a playful intervention with LEGO-bricks.