Annika Hauptvogel

Hypotheses for a Theory of Production in the Context of Industrie 4.0

Significant increase in productivity of production systems has been an effect of all past industrial revolutions. In contrast to those industrial revolutions, which were driven by the production industry itself, Industrie 4.0 is pushed forward by an enormous change within the current society due to the invention and frequent usage of social networks in combination with smart devices. This new social behaviour and interaction now makes its presence felt in the industrial sector as companies use the interconnectivity in order to connect production systems and enhance collaboration. As employees bring their own smart devices to work the interconnectivity is brought into the companies as well and Industrie 4.0 is pushed into the companies rather than initiated by the companies themselves. On top of productivity improvement within production the fourth industrial revolution opens up new potentials in indirect departments such as engineering. This focus differentiates Industrie 4.0 from the first three industrial revolutions, which mainly focused on productivity increase by optimising the production process. Within the Cluster of Excellence “Integrative Production Technology for High-Wage Countries” of the RWTH Aachen University four mechanisms were developed which describe Industrie 4.0. The mechanisms “revolutionary product lifecycles”, “virtual engineering of complete value chains”, “better performing than engineered” and “revolutionary short value chains” can be achieved within an Industrie 4.0-environment. This environment is based on the four enablers “IT-Globalisation”, “single source of truth”, “automation” and “cooperation” and enhances collaboration productivity. Therefore the present paper examines and introduces hypotheses for a production theory in the context of Industrie 4.0. For each mechanism two hypotheses are presented which explain how the respective target state can be achieved. The transmission of these mechanisms into producing companies leads to an Industrie 4.0 capable environment strengthening competitiveness due to increased collaboration productivity within the direct and especially indirect departments. The specified hypotheses were developed within the framework of the Cluster of Excellence “Integrative Production Technology for High-Wage Countries” of the RWTH Aachen University.

Cyber-Physical Production Management

Today a high adherence to delivery dates is the main logistic target for manufacturing companies. To control the increasing complexity of production planning and control manufacturing companies use IT systems. However, the applied IT systems often do not provide a reliable forecast of delivery dates and thus affect the required adherence to delivery dates. The paper describes a cyber-physical approach to optimize the production planning and control towards a reliable detailed planning. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the deviations between the production schedule of the IT system and the production processes in reality. With the knowledge of the revealed deviations and their causes the process of production planning can be adjusted towards a more dependable high resolution production planning and control.

Self-Optimizing Decision-Making in Production Control

This paper deals with the concept for self-optimizing decision-making in production planning and control. The concept is based on a value stream that provides real-time production data. This data enables a qualified decision regarding production planning and control. Practice has shown that production systems with a high production process complexity—such as job shop production with low volume production—are difficult to control automatically. Therefore, employees have an important role to play but need to be supported regarding their decision-making. The goal is to highlight relevant decisions and put them into the correct context. An unconventional and interactive illustration that abandons classic numerical key performance indicators helps to derive the correct decisions. Varying levels of detail regarding the depicted data allow the user to “zoom” in or out of the state of his production system. By support of simulation and visualization tools, the aim of this paper is to present a concept for self-optimizing decision-making in production control in order to help user making the right decision.

Web-based value stream oriented simulation of production control

Production control faces the challenge to cope with high market dynamics and high complexity in production structures. Therefore, simulation is often used to configure production control properly. Today, the generation and configuration of these simulation models need expert knowledge and cause high costs. The presented approach shows how simulation models can be generated in short times and without expert knowledge within simulation. Therefore a web-based platform is configured, which enables the employees to generate a simulation model of the production. Since the structure of these simulation models is modular, the employees can upload input data and chose different strategies of production control by themselves in order to optimize their current production control. By integration of employees within the simulation generation process, the acceptance in simulation and in simulation results increases.

Towards a Technology-Oriented Theory of Production

Manufacturing companies in high-wage countries—one of the pillars of the European national economies—are particularly exposed to changes in global markets and rising market volatility. It is therefore necessary that manufacturers in these countries not only focus on reducing costs, but instead address the entire set of commonly defined operational capabilities: cost, quality, flexibility, and delivery performance. Although the optimization of these factors has been viewed since long as being largely mutually exclusive, we argue that advances in modern production technology might enable the resolution of the involved dichotomous relationships. In this chapter, we hence aim at presenting a technology-oriented theory of production that operationalizes the link between technological advances and possibilities to strengthen the four competitive priorities of manufacturing companies. For this purpose, existing production theories are first reviewed to ground and classify our theory. We subsequently formalize the technology-oriented theory by adopting a profitability assessment perspective derived from the insights of all projects within the Cluster of Excellence Integrative Production for High-Wage Countries.

Steigerung der Kollaborationsproduktivität durch cyber-physische Systeme

Die Produktionssteuerung ist das zentrale Element, um einen stabilen Produktionsprozess zu realisieren. Um steigender Marktdynamik und wachsenden Kundenanforderungen gerecht zu werden, ist es unumganglich die zur Produktionssteuerung eingesetzten IT-Systeme auf die sich wandelnde Unternehmensumgebung anzupassen. Industrie 4.0 bietet die Grundlage fur eine Verbessrung der Produktionssteuerung. Zum einen konnen mit Hilfe intelligenter Sensorik zusatzliche Daten aus der Produktion generiert werden. Durch eine intelligente Verarbeitung innerhalb der Sensorik stehen den IT-Systemen aggregierte Informationen zur Verfugung. Zum anderen hat der Fertigungssteuerer durch eine schnellere Verarbeitung von Daten Echtzeitinformationen zur Entscheidungsunterstutzung zur Verfugung. Somit steigt die Kollaborationsproduktivitat des Produktionssteuerers mit dem planenden IT-System.

Concept for the Analysis of Disruption Consequences in a Complex Job Shop Manufacturing

In this paper, an approach to quantify the effects of disruptions in a complex job shop manufacturing is introduced. Key figures within this approach are the effects of disruptions on logistic targets. With the help of discrete event simulation, the consequences of several disruptions are quantified and visualized.

Cyber-physische Produktionssteuerung

Kurzfassung Die Erreichung einer hohen Termintreue stellt für 67 Prozent aller Unternehmen aus dem Maschinen- und Anlagenbau die führende logistische Zielgröße dar. Ansätze, die im Zuge von Industrie 4.0 entwickelt werden, versprechen eine bessere Beherrschung der Produktionsplanung und -steuerung (PPS), welcher bei der Erreichung einer hohen Termintreue trotz kurzfristiger Änderungswünsche seitens des Kunden und anderer unvorhersehbarer Störungen eine herausragende Bedeutung zukommt. Der vorliegende Beitrag befasst sich mit den Auswirkungen von Industrie 4.0 auf die Produktionsplanung und -steuerung (PPS) in einem komplexen Produktionsumfeld. Im Rahmen des Forschungsprojekts ProSense werden Lösungsansätze erarbeitet, um Fertigungssteuerer in einem cyber-physischen Produktionssystem (CPPS) optimal unterstützten zu können.