Management

Production in networks and clusters is gaining more and more importance in theory and practice. Micro enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises possess a high potential of networking. Innovative concepts, like concepts of Competence-cell-based Networks and Clusters, can exploit this potential. For this a three-layer procedural model of the production network formation, an upward compatible cluster concept including technical-organisational and spatial-infrastructural aspects as well as factors for success for networks and clusters are presented. Future strategies for a rethinking about these points in enterprises of production and service are pointed out as thesis.

Cooperations are an important strategic alternative to further the competitiveness of enterprises. This paper explores on alliance capabilities and readiness when entering into cooperations with other enterprises. These variables are represented in a descriptive and explanatory model. This model is the basis for the recommendations suggesting possible ways to enhance the willingness of enterprises to enter cooperations and how to develop the necessary alliance capabilities to ensure their success.

Permanently changing environment conditions, the constant market advancement and the accelerated technological progress will force enterprises to precisely plan and optimise their production in ever shorter cycles. Planning tasks in the field of the production will therefore become increasingly complex. The tools of the digital factory and aspects of the technology management will make Advanced Industrial Engineering a powerful support for planners and designers. This enables them to plan and execute change processes faster and more precise. The article gives an overview of future solutions advanced Industrial Engineering will provide for the planning and optimisation of factories for the year 2020.

Complexity will be characteristic for future economic and technological development. Highly integrated and customer-specific products, that are manufactured in short times and call for life-long services, pose demanding challenges for companies of all sizes. Life cycle orientation and product variety thus mean a new dimension of complexity for production management, knowledge engineering and general management. Consequently, in future it will not necessarily be the fastest, cheapest or technologically most advanced company, that will be most successful, but possibly the one that is able to cope with this growing complexity in the best way.

Business process management (BPM) as a process-oriented approach to management has to implement and control the change process within an organisation from function- to process-orientation regarding organisational, personal and technological aspects. Furthermore BPM offers software-support to plan, control and supervise process performance and comprehensive cooperation of business processes.

20 years have gone by since the first complex Revenue Management System DINAMO (Dynamic Allocation and Maintenance Optimizer) has been applied for an integrated price and capacity control. From then on Revenue Management has established itself as a planning- or rather as a decision-instrument for acceptance/rejection problems mainly within the service industry. Airlines, car rentals and hotels particularly use this instrument. Until today only a few authors have discussed the possibility to assign Revenue Management also to the industry [1 - 4].

Optimized and efficient business processes are increasingly understood to be the key elements of competitive enterprises. The so far separated functionalities of modelling, execution, integration and analysis of business processes undergo currently a strong trend of convergence - this will lead to a new product type. These new systems will enable companies to put their business process model into the centre of their IT-landscape, to manage them process-centrically and to perform a successive transition to the Real-Time Enterprise due to the consideration of process data within the process model.

Knowledge Management is for many projects a future target whereby the potential of using KM during the project is unfortunately neglected. This starts with the project teams who know nothing about each other and continues with the way in which knowledge management concepts are designed: “in private”. The article describes connections between process optimisation, enterprise culture and knowledge management as well as the “KM²” procedure in the joint project WISMA, where the acceptance for changes and authentic handling during the project is the focal point right from the beginning.

After-sales services generate a high percentage of today’s business volume in the industry of producer goods. Basis of after-sales services is the availability of spare parts for a contracted timeframe of support. A long term provision of electronic spare parts, however, faces problems because of short innovation cycles and the resulting decreasing availability of components. A closed-loop supply chain integrating manufacturer and treatment facilities provides an opportunity to ensure a long-term provision of spare parts by using components of used equipment.

In the current difficult times there are various management approaches and “Best Practices”, which in many cases have questionable scientific qualities. Organization theories, however, possess the charm, that they describe a comprehensible order frame. The conversion of a theory is nevertheless a venture, because the implementation instruments are usually too weakly pronounced. By the example of the discourse of an Extended Management System with approaches of quality and knowledge management an instrument is presented, which fills the current demands for transformation ability, participation and transparency. The realization of the instrument requires thereby the use of dis-tributed software systems, which are based on one, only recently available object oriented technology. The implementation of an Extended Management System is thereby economically enabled.