Profitability

Technical rules not only define interfaces as a basis for interchangeability, comparability and interoperability, but also give their users the certainty about safety and quality. Technical rules contain the experience of many experts and are important for designers, developers and system integrators to make their work more efficient and reliable. Especially for Industrie 4.0, which stands for high-grade networking and dynamic processes, this is a central element. Standardized interfaces contribute to a complete, bi-directional exchange of information in a holistic digital process chain.

Industry 4.0 requires many efforts in terms of standardization. So far, small and medium-sized enterprises have scarcely been regarded in this context. This study presents empirical results from 225 SMEs regarding three contexts of standardization, inside the enterprise, interfaces with other enterprises and outside the enterprise. Differentiated for ten industry sectors, distinct characteristics and strategies for standardization regarding each industry sector are derived.

In the previous issue (Industrie 4.0 Management 5/2016) the features and characteristics of supply concepts and the fundamentals of the Total cost of ownership (TCO) concept were explained. The present article addresses all supply related logistics processes and refers to specifics of the TCO concept.

The importance of efficient logistics as a key success factor for companies is well known. Efficient logistics processes can help to gain competitive advantage and to secure market positions of companies. The supplier industry is not exempt from this trend taking responsibility of diverse activities for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) in providing ready modules and systems. However, complex supply chains cause high logistics costs. As various supply concepts are possible for parts and materials produced in upstream stages of the supply chain, each of these concepts entail differing costs. The identification of an economically optimal supply concept through comparison and evaluation of alternatives is therefore of strategic importance. The article demonstrates the use of the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) concept for this purpose.

For ensuring their competitiveness, companies need to react flexible and appropriate to changing environmental requirements. Therefore they use process-improving and competence-increasing methods. The selection of the methods is usually based on intuition and experiences. Often the fact that employees need specific competences to implement the methods is neglected. Furthermore companies do not necessarily know if the chosen methods fit to the given context. For this reason a systematic needs to be developed which considers employee competences and company characteristics for an efficient selection of methods.

The importance of key performance indicators (KPIs) to efficiently control logistics processes is considerably rising. An essential requirement to successfully use KPIs is their comparability and consistency. In this article a review of the situation of KPIs’ standardization is used to derive nine fields of action for improving the standardization of KPIs. The first six fields are addressing the data collection, the data processing as well as the data preparation. Investments in IT and staff are vital to support these goals. On top of that the management’s support and a change in business culture that advocates the benefit of sharing information create the required setting for a standardized reporting.

Automotive manufacturers and their suppliers need a high degree of process flexibility to respond quickly and efficiently to the market demand. Picture, however, production, purchasing and supply processes not interacting optimally, causing delays which inevitably pushes costs higher. The search for weak points in the supply chain is a major challenge, because common analysis tools cannot holistically capture the already complex processes. The new process mining technology, however, allows for the analysis and visualization of the entire process chain, a task which classic analysis tools fail to accomplish.

In many companies the performance measurement system has become confusingly complex. Therefore efficient production control and identification of potentials for improvement are not possible. The solution is a lean and customized production performance measurement system. Based on success factors KPIs are developed. These indicators allow it to visualize complex issues in a transparent way. The result is a tool, which helps organizations to plan, monitor, control and improve their performance.

The output of greenhouse gas emissions can be described as utilization of limited shared resources. Within the EU the consumption of environmental resources is covered by regulatory constraints. Resulting consequences lead to new strategic and operational challenges for the controlling. The new regulations have an impact on several company levels and will be discussed in the following.

Ecological sustainability in production does not only cause a positive contribution to environmentalism, but also leads to a longterm improvement of the companies’ competitiveness. Due to a lack of transparency, many companies face difficulties rating their own resource efficiency. This article deals with the introduction of a ratio system, which allows companies to evaluate the efficiency concerning their usage of resources. This enables companies to enhance their consumption transparency. Besides, this article discusses the challenges of using ratio systems and the comparison of ratios in general.