Adaptability

Changeability is the capability of an organization to establish changes with a lasting effect. The possibility to correctly plan and create changeability of an organization already in the phase of plan-ning is an essential factor to be taken into account when considering changeable logistics systems. For this reason there is a need for conceptual change of established planning methods. In the context of discrete-event simulation, as an established planning method, the modular design of simulation models may be a first step to include changeability into model-based analysis. Against this background, This article discusses possibilities to build modular simulation models and shows how this modular design can be used in practice.

The trend for product individualization results in a demand for small and more flexible production series with a considerable diversity of components. The improvement of manufacturing and assembly flexibility has a direct impact on the control complexity of the manufacturing tasks leading to big challenges for the quality assurance systems. The quality assurance strategy that is nowadays used for mass production is unable to cope with the inspection flexibility needed among small series production. The major challenge faced by a quality assurance system applied to small series production is to guarantee the needed quality level already at the first run (“first time right on time”). This demands a constant adaption of the quality assurance system behavior according to the dynamic manufacturing conditions, which can be achieved by the improvement of cognitive and autonomy aspects of the manufacturing systems. This work introduces the concept of Cognitive Production Metrology as an ...

The migration of production sites out of Europe is primarily based on manufacturing costs. Therefore, perfectly functioning communication systems and reliable logistic services are needed. Although the advantage of lower labor costs will decrease in the future, more low-wage countries will be discovered. The answer cannot be found in low-cost production but in an approach which optimizes processes in a holistic way avoiding waste through intelligent solutions.

In an increasingly turbulent environment, today enterprises are confronted with the challenge of aligning available capacities with the capacities required using targeted measures. An approach is presented to support the selection of measures quantitatively.

The traditional approach of transport logistic challenges is based on a central and static viewpoint. A given scenario is tried to be solved in an optimal way. Examples of established and well investigated scenarios in this area are the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) and the Pickup and Delivery Problem (PDP). The algorithms for these traditional points of view are pushed to their limits when applied on dynamically changing and close to reality scenarios. By contrast, the introduced autonomous control concept Distributed Logistics Routing Protocol (DLRP) was developed to act within a dynamic environment and to enable logistic objects to make own decisions. A comparison of the DLRP and a traditional algorithm will be presented as an evaluation study of the autonomous control concept.

The devastating economical crisis and the rise of economy in 2010 showed that companies nowadays act in a turbulent environment. Internal and external factors like customer demand change in a very dynamic way. The research and development project ProAktiW is funded by the BMBF. Results of the project will show that an increase of changeability induces the sustainable and economical production in Germany. This article shows first results of the recently started project.

A research project sponsored by Germany‘s Ministry of Economics and Technology is concerned with how modern Internet technologies can enable more efficient use of machinery in road and civil engineering. The idea of the AutoBauLog project - Autonomous Control in Construction Site Logistics - is to integrate all planning and construction processes of a civil engineering project from start to finish. It is based on a five-dimensional construction model that combines 3D geometry data, time and cost information. This technology is to keep project accountants and controllers up-to-date on changes on a construction site and on the impact of these changes on the cost and time schedule. Problems can thus be actively and promptly tackled before they influence the overall process.

This article deals with flexibility of production and distribution processes within global production networks. It introduces the concept of autonomous products, classifies different types of flexibility and develops according object models. The decision alternatives resulting from the increased flexibility are modelled as a mathematical function. Different decision methods are proposed for decision rendering and selecting between these alternatives. Exemplary applications in some scenarios are proposed.

Against the background of complex and volatile value chains the success factor quality is gaining increasingly in importance. Today, product quality and process quality as well as their continuous improvement are the basis for entrepreneurial success. Thus quality controlling becomes a central function in order to assure competitiveness of companies. New approaches are in demand in order to fulfil quality requirements along value chains and in order to link quality management systems with quality controlling. By an inter-divisional and company-wide implementation of Quality Gates these requirements can be met.

The Autonomous Logistic Engineering Methodology (ALEM), which is developed within the Collaborative Research Center 637, provides several tools for creating models of autonomously controlled logistic systems. To evaluate such models, the ALEM framework is extended to include a simulation component. As the ALEM Models cannot run directly within simulation software, they are transformed using principles of the Model Driven Architecture. To enable the transformation several open source tools can be applied. This article evaluates a selection of such tools with the aim of integrating them into ALEM.