Jochen Kreutzfeldt

Expanding bottleneck management from manufacturing to product design and engineering processes

Bottlenecks impede the performance of product design and engineering processes.Bottleneck management has neglected product design and engineering processes.A new concept is developed for product design and engineering processes.The new concept is tested using an event-discrete simulation model.The positive impact of the new bottleneck management concept could be confirmed. Bottlenecks inhibit the performance of companies. Up to now, bottleneck management research has concentrated on manufacturing processes, while neglecting product design and engineering processes. This research fills this gap through developing and testing of a new bottleneck management concept for product design and engineering processes. The new concept is developed using a system theory modelling approach and comprises of four bottleneck management counter measures. Two propositions were developed to test the concept through an event-discrete simulation model. The simulation is grounded on empirical data from three design-driven companies and tests the impact of the four bottleneck management counter measures on the performance of product design and engineering processes. The findings from the simulation confirm the applicability of the newly developed bottleneck concept to improve the performance of product design and engineering processes. In doing so, this research study expands bottleneck management for the first time from manufacturing to product design and engineering processes.

Comparative Analysis of European examples of Freight Electric Vehicles Schemes. A systematic case study approach with examples from Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden and the UK

E-Mobility is a hot topic, in the public policy area as well as in business and scientific communities. Literature on electric freight transport is still relatively scarce. Urban freight transport is considered as one of the most promising fields of application of vehicle electrification, and there are on-going demonstration projects. This paper will discuss case study examples of electric freight vehicle initiatives in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK and identify enablers and barriers for common trends.

Strategies to Increase the Profitability of Electric Vehicles in Urban Freight Transport

Electric vehicles (EVs) address the challenges global megatrends impose on freight transporting companies in urban areas. EVs decouple transport costs from depleting oil reserves and are free of tailpipe emissions. They are, technically, suitable for urban transport tasks which are often characterized by short, pre-planned tours and enable battery charging—or changing—at the depot. Despite these promising potentials, electric urban freight transport is still a niche market. The literature suggests the main obstacle for mass usage is the high purchase price, since profitability is considered the most important factor by nearly all companies. A descriptive statistical analysis of urban freight initiatives deploying EVs in the European North Sea Region identifies two current trends, and clusters profitability concepts of good practice examples in Europe. The study suggests that one trend is to deploy slow and light electric vehicles such as electric cargo bikes, scooters or heavy quadricycles, often combined with micro-consolidation hubs. In the second trend, medium heavy electric trucks substitute conventional vehicles in last mile logistics. Here, concepts that fully exploit the strengths of EVs to increase their productivity reach profitable operations. These include: (i) reducing the capital investment for EVs, (ii) increasing the kilometre range to benefit from low operational costs, (iii) capitalizing on the vehicles’ sustainable image and (iv) exploiting of new business opportunities. The findings have implications for policy makers and companies, and they encourage the use of EVs in freight transport to abate freight transport-related emissions.

Systematic visualisation of assembly performance using throughput curves

The performance in many companies is limited through bottlenecks in manufacturing and assembly processes. For this reason, bottlenecks are often the starting point of improvement initiatives. This paper presents a visual approach for identification and evaluation of bottlenecks to ease the communication of improvement measures on the shop floor. The new developed assembly throughput curve displays the influence of two factors affecting the assembly performance – workload and material availability. The relationship between these two factors is mapped and a throughput curve is determined for an assembly station. In order to verify the findings, an event-discrete simulation is performed and analysed. Nine generic bottleneck cases have been identified and verified. Each of these generic cases can be extracted and displayed using one particular operating curve, which can be used like pictograms. The simulation supported the developed model.

Application of production management principles to engineering processes: An explorative study

The capability to develop high quality products and processes constitutes the competitive advantage of many engineering companies. In production management, numerous tools exist for improving both effectiveness and efficiency. This study explores the applicability of these production management principles to engineering management. An academic focus group and engineering managers in seven German companies were interviewed and the application of several methods was identified. The outcomes confirm that the application of production management principles to engineering processes is related to the degree of novelty that is inherent to engineering projects in companies. Furthermore, the application of production-based methods needs to be embedded in a structured engineering process to be useful in a company. However, most engineering management approaches focus on effectiveness rather than efficiency.

Einsatz von Location Based Services in Produktion und Intralogistik

Kurzfassung In diesem Beitrag wird ein Portfolio von Location Based Services für Produktions- und Logistikprozesse vorgestellt. Mithilfe einer Delphi-Studie wurde das Portfolio bestehend aus neun LBS als Teil einer Serviceschicht von Experten entwickelt und evaluiert. Darüber hinaus wird ein Implementierungsvorschlag vorgestellt, wie diese Serviceschicht in eine Referenzarchitektur zur Indoor-Lokalisierung eingebunden werden kann.

Nachhaltigkeit des urbanen Gütertransports stärken: Kann ein Transition-Management-Ansatz elektrische Nutzfahrzeuge fördern?

Deutschland ist bestrebt, ein international fuhrender Leitmarkt und Leitanbieter der Elektromobilitat zu werden; bis 2020 sollen eine Million Elektrofahrzeuge auf deutschen Strasen fahren. Das sind die Ziele, die die deutsche Bundesregierung bezuglich der Elektromobilitat verlautbart hat. Dem Expertenrat der Nationalen Plattform Elektromobilitat (NPE) Deutschlands zufolge ist Deutschland auf einem guten Weg zur Leitanbieterschaft. Zum Jahresende 2015 erwartete die NPE (2014) 29 Elektroserienfahrzeuge deutscher Automobilhersteller. Die Bemuhungen, einen Leitmarkt zu etablieren, bleiben dagegen zuruck: Nur die Halfte der geplanten Anzahl an Elektrofahrzeugen wird bis 2020 registriert sein, falls keine weiteren politischen Fordermasnahmen ergriffen werden (NPE 2014, S. 43). Das Expertengremium ordnet Deutschland bei der Wandlung zu einem fuhrenden Markt daher eher im Mittelfeld ein. Andere Bewertungen bestatigen diese Einschatzung im Wesentlichen (McKinsey 2014; Roland Berger 2015). Dieses Ungleichgewicht zwischen den verschiedenen Ebenen beim Erreichen der Ziele kommt nicht uberraschend, wenn das Prinzip hinter den Zielen fur die Elektromobilitat ausgewertet wird. Die Bundesregierung wurdigt den Beitrag von Elektrofahrzeugen zur Reduzierung des CO2‐Ausstoses (Merkel 2013). Der Schwerpunkt bei der Forderung der Elektromobilitat liegt jedoch in der Unterstutzung der Automobilindustrie des Landes, da der Sektor eine der wichtigsten Saulen der deutschen Wirtschaft darstellt: Die Automobilindustrie generiert ein Viertel des Gesamtumsatzes der deutschen Industrie und ein Funftel der deutschen Exporte (Merkel 2013). Eine Analyse der Richtlinien zur Elektromobilitat in sechs Zustandigkeitsbereichen kommt zu einer ahnlichen Schlussfolgerung, namlich, dass der vorrangige Schwerpunkt Deutschlands die Industriepolitik ist (Lane et al. 2013, S. 241).

IMPACTS ON SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT AND ITS FLEXIBILITY THROUGH COMPONENT COMMONALITY AND POSTPONEMENT

The current trend to shortening product lifecycles and the uncertainty in the dynamics of global markets force companies to increase flexibility in supply chain management. In spite of the importance of the interdependencies between product design and supply chains, the contribution of product design principles to supply chain management flexibility has not been, so far, sufficiently investigated in the scientific literature. This research will show the positive benefits of combining postponement and component commonality in the automotive industry. Insights from literature and a case study are combined to evaluated the impacts on the supply chain variables coordination, collaboration and configuration and its flexibility. The notion of this work is to convince companies in making combined component commonality and postponement decisions rather than separate ones.

Determining the Stability of Collaborative R&D Networks

To reduce the likelihood that R&D projects fail, companies tend to perform collaborative R&D activities in networks. A fundamental characteristic of networks is stability. This paper introduces a novel approach that theoretically determines the stability of R&D networks and combines the analysis of network topology with a two-layer simulation model.Graph theory and measures from social network analysis are used to analyze the topology of collaborative R&D project networks. Our study enables us to identify the companies that play a key role in R&D networks. To ensure the right outcome of the collaborative R&D project, participants with a high betweenness centrality index should be monitored. These participants influence the stability of collaborative networks on a large scale. With these insights, an improved risk management approach can be set up.Copyright