Start-up Management

The problems occurring during ramp-up processes of new products are usually of technical nature. They, however, feature a large-scale potential for causing or intensifying further problems in other fields of action during the project. Especially small and medium-sized companies suffer from the absence of appropriate documentation methods and proactive approaches for effective containment actions in case of conflicts. Looking at a ramp-up along the supply chain the process consists of a large number of local ramp-ups. Conventional project management methods do not offer suitable tools for this multi-level problem. A holistic ramp-up management needs to be developed.

An increasing customer-driven rate of individualisation as well as the lack of brand loyalty is leading to a greater competition within the automotive industry. Project organisations integrate innovations and technologies into the product under enormous permanent pressure. Especially the defined targets concerning time-to-market, costs, and quality set new challenges to the project management throughout the often decentralised innovation network of engineering partners and manufacturers.

For the economic control of production ramp-up processes established instruments such as milestones exist. Also, there are several approaches to the planning and control of the factors time, costs, and quality. Those approaches, however, are not sufficient for the optimisation of production ramp-up. Therefore in this article the authors present three questions that have not been solved yet. These are the aggregation of the goals of the ramp-up by an integral controlling, the definition of the contribution to the shareholder value, and the coordination of the companies involved in corporate networks.

Facing shorter product life cycles and ever changing customer requirements, production ramp-up processes are becoming one of the most decisive factors to stay in the market. In contrast to the automotive industry, where large scale information systems (IS) and simulation tools allow the build up of digital factories, small and medium sized enterprises (SME) lack resources to satisfy the corresponding organisational and IS-specific requirements. The focus of the research project ELAN is to develop an overall approach to manage production ramp-up adapted to the needs of SME.

The fact that the ramp-up phase is a highly critical and economically important stadium within the product lifecycle for both suppliers and OEMs implies that an efficient product change management is applied to meet the goals of cost, quality, and time. This article introduces a combined management concept called hybrid product change management. By recombining existing management solutions, such as the standard processes matching certain product change types and the product change processes based on process elements, enterprise networks are enabled to coordinate all product change projects. This aspect is described further by giving an idea of how this hybrid product change management can be supported in terms of information and communication technology and knowledge management.

The answer to engineering change and event management within a supplier network is collaborative ramp-up management, because it achieves transparency and defined structures in the ramp-up planning and steering processes. The usage of the ramp-up demonstrator, developed by the IML, simplifies the serial start-up within a supplier network. The ramp-up demonstrator is a combination of order-to-delivery simulation and current workflow management concepts, by which a controllable and plannable ramp-up environment is achieved.

Today, an efficient product ramp-up is a precondition of the success of a company. The ramp-up management provides the coordination and management of the ramp-up process. The Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation and the company Schnitzer Anlauf- und Projektmanagement GmbH has developed a tool for analysing the product ramp-up process in order to achieve potentials for optimization. Ramp-up projects can be evaluated and best practices can be identified.

Due to shortening product life cycles and to the continuous enlargement of product ranges the ramp-up of production systems has become a significant criterion for innovation dynamics of producing companies. Besides the in-creasing technical complexity, a growing number of different parties are involved with different targets and interests. The result is a rising number of possible disturbances for the ramp-up process. In order to better control and shorten ramp-up projects, methods and tools have to be developed to manage the project along the complete value chain. The article gives an outlook on the ramp-up of the future by describing an approach that is the basis for a research project supported by the German ministry of research and education.

For successful new product introductions in a highly competitive market the performance of future production ramp-ups has to be increased. Solving emerging problems efficiently is a necessity for the reduction of total costs and time of the manufacturing start-up period. A specific risk management allows the measurement of potential problems arising in the ramp-up process. Based on this knowledge, it is determined in which specific area a detailed scenario planning promises higher gains than efforts.