Open Access Articles

The SARS-CoV-2 virus poses unexpected challenges for the global economy. Demand for goods collapsed, and supply declined because companies suddenly ran out of employees or intermediate products. As a result, economic indicators turned negative. However, although an economic recovery is now underway, uncertainty about future developments is still on a record high. This is due not least to global value chains. Their disruption was a major factor in the aforementioned distortions, but they are still central to local production.

Simulation is frequently used for prediction of the outcome of adjustments in production systems. Real decision processes must be represented in the simulation. To achieve this, complex real decision processes have to be transferred into the simulation. This leads to a high effort for the creation of simulation models. This is resolved by the concept of iterative optimization-based simulation. Instead of transferring complex decision processes into the simulation, the predicted parameters are exported and existing decision processes determine a solution.

Severe economic crises lead to a significant increase in the frequency of company insolvencies. The insolvency of one company in turn has a significant negative impact on other companies, which consequently lose key customers or suppliers. For risk management, the quantification of risks and the initiation of coping measures, it is particularly important in a crisis to properly assess the insolvency risks of business partners (counterparty risks). It is essential here that the insolvency risks of companies cannot be viewed independently, but that there is a considerable systematic component.

Innovation activity in the industrial environment is shifting towards product-service systems as a result of digitalisation. Small and medium-sized enterprises have so far focused their development activities strongly on product development. The switch to “smart” products and the coupling to services often requires personnel and financial resources that SMEs cannot provide. Crowdsourcing is one way of opening up the innovation process to external actors and realising cost and speed advantages. However, the integration of crowdsourcing elements faces several challenges. This article shows both the potentials and the barriers of crowdsourcing in the industrial environment.

The implementation of Industry 4.0 solutions offers great potential for meeting growing challenges in the context of digitization. Nevertheless, particularly small and medium-sized companies are hesitant to implement Industry 4.0 solutions. Within the framework of the ERDF research project »Synus«, methods and tools were developed to support small and medium-sized companies in the evaluation and selection of Industry 4.0 solutions. This contribution presents the potential model, which enables small and medium-sized enterprises to select suitable Industry 4.0 solutions.

Markets will change dramatically due to the megatrend platforming [1]. For previously isolated markets, such as Smart Factory, Smart Logistics or Smart Grids, this offers the potential to create interconnected “smart Ecosystems”. Logistics platforms as an instrument of networking are a key driver of this platform economy. In the application for Supply Chain Visibility, logistics platforms promote the transparency and control of logistics chains and thus represent an essential first step towards smart Ecosystems.

Additive Manufacturing has become more important for industrial applications. The technology offers the opportunity of high geometric flexibility and no need of product specific tools including short time to market. The aim is to integrate added value into products by exploiting these possibilities. Therefore, in this work a methodology focusing on these aspects is developed and applied to a structural component.

The filament printing presented here can be used to produce metallic and ceramic components with complex shapes. Filaments in various highly filled polymers are available for the process. By means of the Shaping-Debinding-Sintering process the green bodies are converted into metallic/ceramic components. As with the PIM process, the filament printing can be used to produce near-net-shape parts, whereby the sintered bodies have a linear shrinkage of 15-20 % compared to the green bodies. In order to produce parts of very high quality, the printing process must be controlled accordingly.

The paradigm shift towards a customer focused mass customization in Industry 4.0 and corresponding Logistics 4.0 requires technical solutions to make these approaches economically viable. When human workers on the shopfloor are faced with these technologies, however, they can be the source of fear and resistance. Applications for mobile devices are a user-friendly component of a digitization strategy in this light. A real life example from the printing industry is highlighting how apps can be used to save money, improve process reliability and increase worker satisfaction at the same time.

Additive manufacturing is a central component of the fourth industrial revolution, which was initiated a few years ago. The growing interconnection of machines and processes and the ever-increasing individualization of customer needs mean that manufacturers have to adapt to changing markets in a continual process due to global competition. The production of prototypes or individual series using machines that produce complex three-dimensional workpieces is becoming increasingly important for manufacturing companies and, thus, for research institutions in the training of qualified specialists.