Ubiquitous Computing

Visteon is one of the largest automotive suppliers world-wide and is focused on innovation and permanent improvement. For Visteon that means the consistent implementation of Lean Manufacturing concepts. Thereby lean in-house logistics represent a core aspect. For that reason the Visteon plant at Düren is developing innovative concepts for the dynamic controlling of the overall material flow together with the chair of production systematics of the university of Aachen. With the implementation of the simple yet flexible variant Kanban system Visteon plant Düren is obtaining a leading position with regard to innovative in-house logistics.

Using case studies, this article describes the business impact that Ubiquitous Computing could have on future organisations. Not only human beings but also products want to communicate a specific image. The article shows how this will affect future business processes. The product becomes the agent of the producer and communicates with its environment in order to comply with the performance objectives given by the producer. By using Ubiquitous Computing, possible future product functions will outperform the current industrial communication design by far.

The proliferation of small mobile devices and everyday objects with integrated sensors and actuators provides the basis for a large variety of novel applications. With capabilities for wireless communication and determining the own position, these devices are ideally suited for location- and context-a-ware systems that are the focus of research in the Nexus project at the University of Stuttgart. The use of these technologies in a factory environment, e.g. a decentralized manufacturing resource management system as presented in this article, opens up a totally new application area.