Franz-Ludwig Bruhns

Open production: scientific foundation for co-creative product realization

Globalization and the use of technology call for an adaptation of value creation strategies. As the potential for rationalization and achieving flexibility within companies is to the greatest possible extent exhausted, approaches to the corporate reorganization of value creation are becoming increasingly important. In this process, the spread and further development of information and communication technology often provide the basis for a reorganization of cross-company value nets and lead to a redistribution of roles and tasks between the actors involved in value creation. While cooperative, decentralized and self-organizing value creation processes are in fact being promoted, the associated potential for development and production engineering is being underestimated and hence not implemented sufficiently. This contribution will introduce a value creation taxonomy and then, using its notion and structure, describe the emerging transformations in value creation on the basis of case studies. Finally an adequate framework for analysing and configuring value creation will be presented.

Open Production: A New Broker-Based Approach to Interactive Value Creation and User Manufacturing

Business strategies and organization are subject to a permanent adjustment due to the discontinuity of the markets. Mass production, in particular, and a focus on tayloristic principles, in general, no longer seem to be the right choice within this context. Rather, the increasing importance of customization and the transition to an information-based economy leads to the question whether the currently enshrined distinction between producer and consumer is still appropriate. The authors of this paper assume that the key to dealing with complex economic turbulences can be found in the implementation of a new form of coordination, in which the strict separation between producer and consumer is repealed. That requires changeability at all levels of production systems as it is inherent to the approach of “Open Production” that will be introduced with this paper. While Open Production encompasses recent concepts like “Open Innovation”, “Mass Customization”, and “e-Manufacturing”, the three “pillars” of Open Production are openness, individualization and web integration. Additionally it implies a superior broker system that coordinates the information and material flows between the stakeholders of open production. This represents a completely new, but profoundly changeable form of coordination integrating the customers into production directly, where as the previously static separation into a customer and a corporate domain and the division of labor and competence is dissolved.Copyright

Square Foot Manufacturing: Event-Driven Manufacturing by Means of Multifunctional Work Spaces

This paper presents Square Foot Manufacturing (SFM) as new approach to realize changeability in the manufacturing process. SFM encompasses a down scaled manufacturing plant for machining small parts; it has reconfigurable structure and holds micro machining units (MMU) that are reduced in function and flexible in adjustment. Because they are sufficiently small it is easy to move these machine tools between individual operation steps and it is feasible to use more than one of them simultaneously machining one work piece.Copyright

Open Production: A Scientific Framework for Co-Creative Product Realization

Globalization and the use of technology call for an adaptation of value creation strategies. As the potential for rationalization and achieving flexibility within companies is to the greatest possible extent exhausted, approaches to the corporate reorganization of value creation are becoming increasingly important. In this process, the spread and further development of information and communication technology often provide the basis for a reorganization of cross-company value nets and lead to a redistribution of roles and tasks between the actors involved in value creation. While cooperative, decentralized and self-organizing value creation processes are in fact being promoted, the associated potential for development and production engineering is being underestimated and hence not implemented sufficiently. This contribution will first describe the emerging transformation in value creation taxonomy and then, on the basis of a case study, develop an adequate framework for value creation configuration.Copyright