process optimization

In many industries the success of companies depends on efficient and sustainable processes: In which way higher output can be achieved by less resource consumption? Many process optimization projects improve single processes but not the whole process chain. Thus a high amount of potentials of resource efficiency are unutilized in manufacturing. For realising enormous achievements energy and resource efficiency have to be integrated into the optimization process.

Although medium sized enterprises ascribe high importance to knowledge management and its impact on company’s success, they have rarely undertaken steps to introduce respective methods. Only a small share of companies applies selected methods, usually rather sporadic and without connection to corporate strategy or other management techniques. The reason lies in the lack of a tool for choosing the most suitable methods. Out of the multitude of instruments available for knowledge management, it is difficult to decide about a method mix fitting best to respective business processes, initial situation and specific demands of the company. This paper presents a concept to manage these shortcomings.

Small and medium enterprises (SME) in the automotive supplier industry are facing rising demands concerning cost and quality of the parts or assemblies they are manufacturing for their cus-tomers. Additionally, the “time-to-market” has to be reduced. Applying traditional methods for rationalization is not sufficient to cope with these requirements. Furthermore, flexible, open, and efficient business processes and technologies are required in the early stages of the product life cycle. In this contribution, the potential of solution approaches based on collaborative, virtual product and process design and optimization is introduced. An example of a metal forming process in automotive supplier industry is used to demonstrate the feasibility of the approach.