Manufacturing Systems

With new markets and decreasing transfer barriers producing companies are facing new possibilities for the optimization of their value chain regarding factor and sourcing cost as well as business opportunities in new markets. Global Footprint Design is therefore a highly relevant business issue which needs to address global cost advantages on one hand and exploitation of markets on the other. The paper presents a heuristics for footprint design which is oriented towards these opportunities.

The paper describes a game called the Supply Net Game, built around the structure of a production supply network based on the “anchoring and adjustment heuristic” which is known as the one people use to make inferences about uncertain events. The game involves four players where everyone manages his manufacturing unit that consists of four production lines which proceed to the joint development of products with the other units. While planning production and controlling inventories, every person should try to minimize the costs caused by both holding items on stock and being in an out-of stock situation. The paper stresses the valuable impact of management games for production engineering education in general and particularly the significance of learning implicit skills as well as gaining insight in inventory control and management of complex distributed production systems such as the system dynamics production network model introduced in the paper.

Recent investigations concerning the international state of the art of micro production technology [1, 2] showed, that it has to be distinguished between two main development directions regarding the manufacturing of function units on the one hand as well as complete products on the other hand. First of all there are the classical precision engineering oriented manufacturing methods [3, 4], e.g. according to the DIN 8580 [5]. Secondly manufacturing methods from the area of microsystems technology have been observed [3, 4]. The integration process of different product functions into one part or component geometry, which is running parallel to the miniaturisation, is a specific challenge regarding the field of micro manufacturing [1]. This affects especially the product and production process development, concerning the precision engineering oriented manufacturing methods. This paper addresses problems regarding the operations management of precision-engineering-oriented micro-production ...

The future of manufacturing industries in Europe is currently a topic for frequent discussions. Competitors from Far East dominate the international markets with low-price products. Outsourcing of manufacturing tasks from Europe to far-east countries is a common practice in the case of commodity products. Will the European economy be able to absorb the resulting losses also in the near future? Experts don’t think so. A study conducted by the Institute for Automation and Control, Vienna University of Technology and the Society for the Promotion and Modernisation of Production Technologies in Austria shows new perspectives with the concept of Adaptive Production

Rising demands for productivity and precision are leading to new machine concepts and processing strategies for tool machines. To meet the new request of these technologies all involved sub-systems must be taken into account for the development, also the clamping jig, which was neglected badly during the past. So one part of the research project “MaschinenbauInitiative Next Economy” was the development of a hydraulic clamping jig for dry milling processes, which can be integrated into compensation concepts of tool machines very easily. As a result, the demonstrator can hand over data of temperatures, positions and forces to the PLC without need of an excessive amount of additional hard and software.

The sector of manufacturing and other involved sectors generates more than 50 % of the German GNP. For future success of this sector a production research, leaded to permanent top performance in production technology, is necessary. Adaptive manufacturing systems are needed for the fast changing future markets. Digital manufacturing is a knowledge based production, which accelerate the technical planning processes and allows collaborative work in networked production structures. The example of an innovation-cluster “digital production” shows the impact of future manufacturing systems realized through time and cost cutting in the developing processes of products and their production.

Industrial companies as well as small and medium sized enterprises engage themselves more and more in international production networks. Each networkpartner aims on building and maintaining business relationships to the best partner for any specific task. This leads to an increasing amount of goods being transported from partner to partner and leads to an immense logistics effort. These logistics tasks are responsible for major cost blocks in most companies. Organisations will have to react to the increasing demand for on time delivery with organisational as well as technological solutions to maintain their competitive advantage.

The development of faster and more powerful computers has led to virtual flood of digital data. Over the decades capacity of data storage devices has continued to multiply. At the same time the dimensions of these digital silos have even become smaller. Year after year better devices and finer write-read-heads are developed. The magnetic bit domains became smaller and smaller. Until one day - they are no bigger than an atom. By using spin-polarized scanning tunnelling microscopy - a method of nanotechnology - it is possible today to determine the individual magnetic orientation of single atoms on surfaces, which means to read magnetic information atom by atom. If the same instrument could be used to write magnetic information in adjacent atoms, it would be possible to store the entire world literature on a space of a postage stamp. This is in the focus of research at the University of Hamburg.

Micro-forming presses are barely to find at the market, especially if it comes apart from high precision and high dynamic to free stroke and force control. The Bremer Institut für angewandte Strahltechnik has developed and built such a press, which is additionally featured with double axis, high stroke and air bearings for high precision force measurement and control.

By Micro Metal Injection Molding (Micro MIM) the manufacturing of miniature parts and parts with microstructured surfaces out of nearly all metallic materials is possible. Single injected parts with dimensions of 300 µm and microsturctured surfaces with details in the range of 20 µm could be achieved. Targeted material selection and process control allow the production of parts consisting of different materials without additional joining techniques. Functionality of parts can be increased by structural properties as micro channels for fluidic applications. On the other hand special material properties as the use of magnetic, bio-active or corrosion resistant materials contribute to further functionalisation. Regarding the trend to smaller components and devices micro MIM offers a cost-effective production technology for the necessary parts.