Potenzial: Globalization

Product Service Systems, as integrative combinations of material and service components, will increasingly establish themselves as an alternative to product-related services in mechanical and plant engineering. Systematic observation of new service offers demands a reorientation within the companies, which can be seen from the development to the end of the utilization of the bundle of services by the customer. This article describes the requirements to the company internal and cooperative organization, which are a necessary condition for the successful offer of product service systems.

Sensor und RFID technologies are increasingly shaping the logistics processes in production and in the service industry. In order to fully exploit the potential of these technologies, a paradigm change must take place where closed and monolithic company structures are transformed into value networks where a multi-faceted exchange and cooperation between companies is the rule. To make this transition attractive for all (or most) participants, the resulting cooperation relationships must be restructured with technical, economical and organizational aspects in mind.

New legal regulations require subsequent organisational and structural changes within the field of recycling complex discarded products (electronic scrap, end-of-life vehicles). Horizontal networks of small and medium sized companies are regarded to be especially suited for the resulting tasks. However, analyses of existing networks show a high diversity of company and network types. Therefore, empirical studies were carried out with the goal of determining characteristics, targets, and measures of existing recycling networks.

The cooperative production of industrial goods and services in networks is a key success factor for a large number of companies. However, inter-organisational cooperation does not only lead to new opportunities in a competitive environment but additional risks can also arise. These risks have to be assessed and controlled by a systematic deployment of advanced risk management methods during all phases of a cooperation’s life cycle. Therefore, this article shows which approaches should be chosen and which constraints have to be considered.

The here presented approach of developing hybrid products uses methods of self-diagnosis for offering required services in real time. The product contains sensors to scan the status. By using the value transmitted by sensors a special diagnose software enables an interface between the hybrid product and the cooperation network for service providing.

Standardized information on clients, staff, suppliers and products that is processed in the company`s systems and can be consulted at any moment are the capital of each company. The data must always be kept up-to-date: to make strategical decisions, to overlook supply chains and to offer the best customer service. Companies cannot accept global challenges without running an efficient Masta Data Management system.

Steadily growing competition has induced business enterprises to look for possibilities of adjusting their structures to present market challenges. In this context the idea of “going-virtual” is constantly mentioned. That there are limitations to such procedures, however, it is shown by the fact that up to now the number of such virtual enterprises and departments respectively is minimal. The co-operation of 16 IT and multimedia firms serves as an example to show up the preconditions of making practical use of the “virtual potential” at least to some extent. Occurring problems clearly show that any decision for or against virtualisation can only be made in individual cases.

With the expansion of the classical considerations regarding supply chain management it is possible to derive new functions, namely financial supply chain management and supply chain relationship management. Based on network theory the task is to develop performance measures concerning the value proposition of logistics in general and for activities on the social and institutional layer in particular. Apart from the introduction of the layers of supply chains an example for the illustration of their interrelations is given with an exemplary supply chain cycle.

A growing number of companies is focussing on their core competencies which leads to an increasing disintegration of existing value chains. Thus competition takes place not only between companies but also between networks of companies. Within global supply networks companies are intensifying their cooperation with suppliers and customers which creates expanded demand for knowledge exchange among the participating business partners. The management of knowledge as a re-source has to be considered as one of the most important success factors and competitive advantage in an intensified complex and dynamic environment.