Training

Learning factories in Germany concentrate on the two classic aspects of production: Optimization of production processes (lean management) as well as the efficient use of resources. The learning factory of the chair of production systems at Ruhr-University Bochum considers also the topic management and organization of labour to convey competences in the field of co-determination. In cooperation between the faculty of mechanical engineering and social sciences as well as the office of cooperation RUB/IMU different learning factory exercises have been developed, which impart this learning factory a special significance.

Which sustainable industrial developments remain to having shaped and changed our work in industry and production? If we look back, experience has shown that it is neither possible to develop fully automated factories nor to conserve all human knowledge by means of huge databases. These formerly trendsetting ideas are now outdated. But what we have learned from the failure of these ideas is a useful concept of the so-called HOT approach: First Human, Second Organization and Third Technology. This way, human knowledge and potential in combination with adequate organization can lead to technical innovation. At present, the challenge is to transfer this concept to recent and future ideas, such as the fully automated car or the change to the use of renewable energy sources. Thus, it should be taken into account that technical innovation must always include human and organizational aspects to be truly sustainable.

Increasingly complex and technology-driven markets require a broad knowledge and qualifications of professionals in manufacturing companies. The range of needs for long-term competitive knowledge adaptation is versatile. Especially in view of the forecasted lack of qualified young people, it is more important to sustainably educate existing staff. Thus it is necessary to create sustainable and innovative learning environments which provide the necessary knowledge, qualifications and skills. An adequate and consistent concept represents the advanced Learning Factory (aLF) and is discussed in this paper.

Is demographic change a nightmare being completely at mercy as a business owner? Or is it rather offering opportunities? Demographic changes are only one factor for a successful business development. Along with other challenges to the company’s development, it can be used as an opportunity: Planning and taking measures in the medium and long term on individual, collective and organizational levels will result in a change of leadership.

Knowledge management can be an important competitive advantage for many companies. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which often have limited access to capital. The challenge in contract logistics is to identify an appropriate knowledge management approach. In particular, the process of proposal preparation is characterized by a high complexity and intensity of specific knowledge. This article presents a knowledge management approach for the tender preparation process of SME in contract logistics.

For most German companies managing demographic change is one of the main future challenges. However, many firms are not yet well prepared to face this development. Nowadays competition is primarily based on knowledge and hence enabling knowledge transfer between older and younger employees has turned to be a key success factor. In this paper we therefore develop a ‘Knowledge Transfer Balanced Scorecard’ in order to provide a hands-on tool for controlling the knowledge transfer process in times of demographic change.

Due to a growing amount of complexity and variants as well as shrinking product life cycles industrial companies meet the challenge to handle a high number of production ramp-ups. Within this context, a fast and smooth ramp-up of assembly systems is becoming more and more a critical success factor. This article describes how smart devices combined with a predictive knowledge database can support and speed up the ramp-up of manual assembly systems in capital goods industries.

If you met an engineer in a R&D department some years ago, he was supposed to be an employee of the firm. However, today, as firms have started to contract out there is an increasing number of high-skilled contractors working side by side with employees in core areas of the firm, e.g. in R&D. A reason which is often cited for this development is the flexibility advantage of using contractors. However, high-skilled contractors can also be a valuable source of new know-ledge and innovation. They can support a firm by recognizing technological trends, absorbing new knowledge and generating innovative products. In this paper we would like to illustrate how contractors can be an important knowledge source and what processes underlie the integration of the contractors’ knowledge. Our paper is based on empirical studies from a long-term research project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education.

Industrial product-service systems (IPS²) represent a combination of interdependent product and service components developed to satisfy highly specific customer needs. One key challenge in the engineering of IPS² pertains to the successful integration of providers’, customers’ and suppliers’ heterogeneous expertise. While previous research mainly addresses this issue through the lenses of organization or automation, little attention has been paid towards integration through interaction. In this paper we therefore ask the question which competencies enable employees and teams in IPS² to successfully deal with heterogeneity thus taking advantage of its innovative potential. We use a a multilevel model of competence and specify it for the IPS² work system on the base of expert interviews. It becomes apparent that experts attribute successful IPS² performance especially to factors which increase perceived stability in flexible or heterogeneous work systems.

Technologies such as Digital Mock Up (DMU) or Virtual Reality (VR) help to expose and fix design errors at an early stage in the product development process. Nevertheless the discovery of these potential problems is still a common obstacle. The approach introduced within this paper improves the existing virtual product validation method by using the company’s existing knowledge of former projects. The DMU-Cockpit integrates the usually spread experience of known errors in one tool by modelling a relation between classified components and sources of error in a matrix. This allows the automatic selection of potential sources of error for a chosen part and derives the most valuable validation tasks of the knowledge base.