Autor: Jan C. Aurich

Companies implement numerous measures to reduce the use of materials and energy in order to increase the resource efficiency. Resource efficiency has to be assessed over the whole lifecycle of a product. Therefore, an approach is requested which assesses the impacts of measures on the production and the use phase of a product.

The ongoing development of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) opens up new possibilities to parallelize information and material flows. Manufacturing processes can be provided with real time information and new lifecycle services (e.g. definition of optimal cutting parameters, life cycle data, etc.) can be realized. In this paper the advantages of RFID on metal cutting tools are discussed. RFID on tools can support an efficient tool management and help to automate manual activities within the manufacturing process.

Nowadays, product piracy is a challenge which should not be neglected by the capital goods industry. Especially, the high margin turnovers in the spare part business are threatened by the increasing number of counterfeited products. First of all, this article gives a definition of product piracy and points out some spare part specific examples affecting different juridical disciplines. After that the framework for a concept against product piracy, including the whole supply chain and product life cycle, is introduced. Within this concept the four modules Piracy-Information-System, Piracy-Evaluation-Model, Protective-Measures-Pool and Organisational-Network are implemented.

Industrial customers are increasingly expecting to be provided with integrated solutions that in addition to a decent physical product comprise diverse services as well. Such solutions, called product-service systems (PSS), have to fulfil both customer individual targets and manufacturer targets. Due to this, manufacturer have to define key figures, which allow to choose the specific configuration of PSS and to measure the performance while it is used. This paper presents an approach for generating key figures for selecting PSS and controlling their performance.

A continuously growing number of product variants and the configuration of globally operating production networks lead to a high number of process variants within these networks. Thus, internal complexity is added to the business. While modularization and standardization are state-of-the-art with regard to the actual product in order to manage complexity a lack of respective actions has to be considered in the field of manufacturing engineering. However, controlling these processes’ complexity and variety is a critical factor of success, too. The presented approach researches influencing factors on standardization of manufacturing engineering processes in a global network. It is based on practical experiences in the commercial vehicle industry. Taking into account different product and process related requirements an optimal degree of standardization can be deduced.

Companies continuously take a chance in establishing international production facilities. However, the process of selecting a new site is yet far from being part of the daily business. Even international operating companies still have to face a considerable set of challenges regarding appropriate methods. The following article presents an approach that supports an efficient selection of suitable suites.

The design of cross-enterprise production processes can be significantly supported by the systematic usage of process modeling methodologies. The following paper shows current and future research work concerning the Integrated Production Process Model (IPPM). Major improvements are related to the integration both of physical and non-physical products and the closed description of cross enterprise production processes. An integrated modeling methodology based on a predefined process module library supports the design process.

In today’s competitive environment, product enhancing technical services (service products) are increasingly perceived as success factors in the production industry. Consequentially, there is a need for practically oriented models for systematic service product design. This paper defines service products and describes their functions and corresponding design dimensions. Furthermore, a recently developed phase model for systematic service product design is introduced, based on which an approach for the design of technical product service systems is presented. The approach aims at exploiting the largely unused potentials of the distribution and service network partners with which many production companies work together.

Due to the dynamic production environment with its multiple fast changing influences, planning and reconfiguration cycles in production have become shorter. In this context, changeability and flexibility of production systems are major factors for success. The paper defines changeability and describes flexibility as major base for changeability. With the concept of Production Projects an innovative and promising concept is introduced that supports the systematic optimization of flexibility and that links the lifecycles of products and production. Furthermore, the Flexibility Mode and Effect Analysis (FlexMEA), on which the systematic analysis and optimisation of flexibility is based, is presented.

In order to meet rising and fast changing requirements companies have to reconfigure their production systems in ever shorter periods. The temporary character of production systems, the rise of complexity as well as a rising number of intra- and inter-organizational cooperation are the logical results of this development. Managing the production as a project is an innovative and promising concept for coping with the resulting challenges. This article introduces the concept of a Project-oriented Production and describes a way for the cooperative planning and designing of modular production systems within 3D planning rooms.