Jan Philipp Schmidt

Machine-to-Machine Communication

Imagine a widespread manufacturing plant equipped with smart machinery and RFID-enabled technology. All machines are interconnected and communicate through their sensors and actuators as they work their way through the manufacturing process. Operators use wireless pads and connect to production systems for diagnostics and manufacturing oversight. Machine load, status, and diagnosis data are further aggregated in enterprise systems for resource planning and production optimization. The machines receive usage feedback to adjust production schemes and therefore optimize cost and quality. The machines also communicate with their own manufacturers to request repairs or order new parts to avoid costly outages. Agent-based systems allocate load to machines in a distributed, often global, production setup to optimize supply chain cost. This is a growing reality in what we call the smart factory. The smart factory of the future is far more agile than the approaches in todays flexible manufacturing. The smart factory connects the machines, devices, logistics, and humans to perform the necessary coordination ubiquitously and ad hoc.

Who is Changing Health Insurance Coverage? Empirical Evidence on Policyholder Dynamics

Long-term health insurance contracts provide policyholders with the option of lapsing coverage or switching to another tariff within the same insurance company. We empirically analyze policyholder behavior regarding contract commitment in a large dataset of German private health insurance contracts. We show that short-term as well as long-term premium development, along with premium adjustment frequency, affect lapse and tariff switch rates. Moreover, the sales channel has a strong impact on switching behavior, indicating that policyholder choice is not fully independent of sales representatives. Our results are important for risk assessment and risk management of portfolios of health insurance contracts and provide better understanding of the dynamics of policyholder behavior in health insurance.

Evaluation Model for Assessment of Cyber-Physical Production Systems

Cyber-physical production systems based on technologies such as machine to machine communication, the Internet of Things and other cutting edge technologies are going to advance manufacturing automation and industrial production. Information technology seems once again to be the driving force for change in manufacturing automation. But what are the characteristics of such systems in comparison to the existing approaches? In this article we recommend an evaluation model for cyber-physical production systems is proposed based on a set of system characteristics, which defines specific abilities and performance indicators. Furthermore, an analysis and verification of that model is presented sketching the typical pattern and impact of cyber-physical production systems. As a result a refined evaluation model is available, suitable for the characterization of cyber-physical technologies and thereby enabling a technological assessment.

Eine Fortschreibung des Rehabilitationsbedarfs in Deutschland bis 2040 anhand demografischer Faktoren

The demographic changes in Germany leads to a significant shift in the composition of the population and the workforce, this affecting the future need for medical rehabilitation. This paper estimates the future change in rehabilitation demand based on a forecast for demographic changes till 2040. First, the sensitivity of the rehabilitation demand with respect to demographic factors is estimated. Second, the demographic factors are projected by stochastic methods, resulting in forecasts for the future need for medical rehabilitation. The projections show that the short-term demand is likely to rise. Theoretically, yearly wage increases of about 2.2% are needed for covering the increasing medical rehabilitation costs from 2010 till 2017. For the mid-term demand, the model predicts a slight decline in rehabilitation cases. Considering all these facts, the budget for rehabilitation will probably not cover the future costs for rehabilitation. However, the long-term forecast is subject to considerable uncertainty.

Beneficial Use of a Virtual Reference Electrode for the Determination of SOC Dependent Half Cell Potentials

A method is presented which obtains the half cell potentials of a sealed commercial cell from a measured OCV-curve. The underlying model is introduced and the physical interpretable parameters are discussed. The method is validated by two experiments simulating different aging mechanisms and future potentials are discussed.

Modellgetriebene Entwicklung serviceorientierter Anlagensteuerungen

Zusammenfassung Serviceorientierte Architekturen ermöglichen flexible Steuerungsstrukturen. Allerdings steigt dadurch die Komplexität beim Engineering der Komponenten des Steuerungsnetzwerks. Im Rahmen dieser Veröffentlichung wird aufgezeigt, dass eine modellgetriebene Entwicklung kombiniert mit einer wiederverwendbaren, modular-aufgebauten Systemsoftware den Umgang mit Komplexität beim Engineering vereinfachen kann.