Autor: Jürgen Gausemeier

Digitization creates fascinating opportunities. However, we have to recognize that Germany needs more than the technology leadership in order to succeed in the long term. We must be able to transform the technology leadership we take in the field of industry 4.0 for example into added value, entrepreneurial success and employment. Essential levers to success are data based services, business models, positioning in platform economy, foundation culture, shaping the digitized working environment and, last but not least, Systems Engineering. In any case, our success will be a matter of strategic operation and systemic thinking and acting.

Mechatronic systems have to fulfill increasingly advanced functions and requirements to serve future customer needs and create reliable, resource-efficient and user-friendly systems. To realize tomorrow’s technical systems, solutions in context of self-optimization can be used. Thus, intelligent behavior can be integrated in technical systems. These systems are able to adapt their behavior autonomously and react to outer influences. The Leading-Edge Cluster “Intelligent Technical Systems OstWestfalenLippe (it’s OWL)” focuses on the described innovation leap from mechatronics to intelligent technical systems. Within this contribution we explain the capabilities of solutions in context of self-optimization on the example of machine learning methods. Furthermore, an approach for the identification of potentials for the integration of self-optimization in mechatronic systems will be introduced.

The leading-edge Cluster Intelligent Technical Systems OstWestfalenLippe (it’s OWL) focuses on the innovation leap from mechatronics to systems with inherent intelligence. Within this paper we explain the technological evolution and its drivers for such intelligent technical systems. This leads to a technological concept which has been chosen as basis for the leading-edge cluster’s technology platform. Finally we present the cluster’s structure and its projects.

Successful enterprises pursue strategies, which are unique and for this reason cannot easily be imitated by competitors. Such strategies are based on a smart combination of various strategic variables. These variables are the result of the characteristic questions of strategy development: Who are our customers? What are our products and services? How are these products and services provided? The handling of a vast amount of strategic variables requires a systematic approach. Therefore we introduce a method which combines characteristics of strategic variables on a discursive way which leads to coherent and promising strategy alternatives. Hence we solve another problem in the context of strategy development: We provide alternatives which are often omitted in practical experience due to time constraints. To overcome the limits of usual thinking - next to things being “en vogue” in industry - and to make substantiated decisions alternatives are necessary.

The information and communication technology distinguish the modern mechanical and automotive engineering. This is described by the term mechatronics. The development progress of information and communication technologies open up further fascinating perspectives: mechatronic systems with inherent partial intelligence. The term Self-optimization characterizes this perspective. Self-optimizing systems are able to react on changing environmental conditions and to optimize their behaviour autonomously. This contribution presents the paradigm of Self-optimization. The potential of Self-optimization is explained by two examples from the system RailCab.

Product innovations are mainly based on a future-oriented alignment of technology push and market pull. The alignment of both aspects with regard to conformity to the corporate strategy is carried out in the context of the strategic product and technology planning, which is the initial point within the product design process. The integral element of this paper is a data base-system which allows performing the tasks of strategic product and technology planning. In particular, information about technologies, product ideas and market segments are represented and related with each other. Typical applications are the design of morphologic boxes an innovation roadmaps.

Capital goods industry is imperilled by counterfeiting more than ever. Legal services are the preferred measure of companies facing this challenge. This article shows further possibilities how producing companies can protect themselves effectively against counterfeiting. There are many technological and organisational measures already available. Furthermore, innovative measures are being developed at the very moment. Considering this background it is necessary to inform affected companies about the manifold possibilities of preventing counterfeiting. Moreover it is essential to depict how a specific threat can be faced by combining stand alone measures to customised safety concepts.

Strategic product planning and strategic technology planning is more important than ever. This planning is based upon the anticipation of market and technology developments. The article shows how new technologies are taken up and how they can be combined to coherent technology strategies. These help the companies to further develop the product range and to position themselves advantageously in the competition of tomorrow. A consistent example from the automotive lighting engineering underlines the high feasibility of the methodology.

Today, most modern mechanical engineering products are strongly driven by information technology. Therefore, the degree of complexity increases, which can reduced by a consistent modularization of the product. This contribution describes which challenges arise especially for the modularization of mechatronic systems, how the product structuring can be conducted and how the product development process is affected.