Kerstin Schmidt

Estimating and Mitigating Design Risk in a Flexible Distributed Design Process

To establish a more flexible relationship between the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and suppliers, the use of flexible contracts in embedded system design has been proposed and it has been shown that such contracts allow a division of risk which often leads to a mitigation of inefficiencies. But from the perspective of the OEM, such flexible contracts also introduce uncertainties regarding the final component behavior the suppliers will deliver. To assess the resulting risk of obtaining an infeasible system configuration, we propose a method to derive an overall certainty to obtain a feasible system configuration under the assumption of uncertain design parameters. Thus, this method enables the OEM to evaluate different setups of flexible contracts with respect to the resulting overall design risk. We also illustrate the application of the proposed method on a hypothetical system design example.

Coordination of Design-for-Recycling Activities in Decentralized Product Design Processes in the Automotive Industry

Design processes in the automotive industry are distributed over various companies. If inappropriate contract structures are used within such collaborations, inefficiencies in the design process occur due to existing uncertainties and differing objectives of the partners. To coordinate design-for-recycling activities in collaborative design processes a mathematical model for the analysis of those processes is developed. We apply the model to a fixed-price and an incentive contract. The analysis shows that fixed-price contracts lead to inefficiencies, while incentive contracts can reduce inefficiencies. We demonstrate the use of this model based upon an illustrative example to show its applicability.

Towards Coordination of Decentralized Embedded System Development Processes

An acceleration in technological change and shorter product life cycles lead among other things to companies‘ concentration on their core competencies and to a parallelization of formerly sequential processes. This results in an increasing number of collaborations between firms. This trend can also be observed in research and development, where projects are often conducted corporately by various partners. An example for such a cooperation is the development of embedded systems. Embedded systems are characterized by a modular design of different interacting hard- and software components. Thereby, the performance of the overall system depends on the interaction of the individual components‘ performances. In current system industry‘s practice, these components are developed by specialized suppliers and are then combined to the embedded system by a system integrator. Since these partners are usually legally and economically independent companies, the cooperation is regularized by contractual agreements. In practice, fixed-price contracts are most commonly used. In these contracts, components‘ requirements as well as prices are fixed ex-ante by the system integrator. However, uncertainties exist with regard to the outcome of the development process. For instance, the performance of components as well as of the overall system cannot be predicted with certainty. Additionally, partners may follow different objectives. Thus, ineficiencies in the design process as well as in the design of the embedded systems often occur. Some of these uncertainties and ineficiencies might be absorbed by making use of existing substitutional dependencies between components. However, this is not possible when inappropriate contracts as well as insufficient incentive structures are applied, since these lead to a decreasing exibility in the development process and thus to an increase in development costs. Thereby, economic risk for suppliers and integrators increases. Overcoming these difficulties requires improved coordination of the partners ahead of and during the development process. Hence, the aim of this contribution is to improve collaborative development processes of embedded systems by adapting mechanisms from supply chain management to development processes. As in supply chain management cooperation is regularized by contracts. In addition, uncertainties exist in the decentralized development processes as in supply chain management, which lead to ineficiencies in the cooperation. Supply chain management has rich experience in exible contracting with various incentives, targeting overall exibilization, risk mitigation, and economic fairness [1]. Unlike in supply chain management there are substitutional dependencies between components‘ attributes in the development process. However, differences between production and development processes currently prevent an easy adoption of these mechanisms. First approaches to the exibilization of contracts in embedded system development processes are given by [2, 3]. In the following section a mathematical model for cooperative development processes is described and analyzed with regard to the optimal actions of the partners.

Scheduling of Electric Vehicles in the Police Fleet

The police aim for using electric vehicles within the criminal investigation service. However, the challenges related to the use of electric vehicles result in a limited availability of these vehicles. Until now, decision support for fleet operation with electric vehicles at the police is missing. This contribution introduces an extension of the Electric Vehicle Scheduling Problem for the police.

Modellierung verteilter Produktentwicklungsprozesse

Die in den vorangegangenen Kapiteln erzielten Ergebnisse zeigen den Bedarf eines vertragsbasierten Ansatzes zur Koordination verteilter Produktentwicklungsprozesse auf. Dies erfordert zunachst ein neuartiges Modell verteilter Produktentwicklungsprozesse unter Berucksichtigung von Unsicherheiten und Abhangigkeiten. Vor diesem Hintergrund wird in Abschnitt 4.1 das entwickelte Modell formal beschrieben und seine Anwendbarkeit anhand eines illustrativen Beispieles aufgezeigt.

Theorie der vertragsbasierten Supply Chain-Koordination

Die im vorherigen Kapitel beschriebene Problemstellung der verteilten Produktentwicklung lasst sich in der Literatur der vertragsbasierten Supply Chain-Koordination zuordnen. Diese Ansatze zur Koordination dezentraler Entscheidungstrager in Supply Chains in Bezug auf ihre Ubertragbarkeit auf verteilte Produktentwicklungsprozesse zu analysieren ist Gegenstand des vorliegenden Kapitels. Hierfur werden in Abschnitt 3.1 zunachst die Grundlagen der vertragsbasierten Supply Chain-Koordination dargestellt.

Analyse zur vertragsbasierten Koordination verteilter Produktentwicklungsprozesse

Die im vorangegangenen Abschnitt 4.2 vorgestellte Analyse zeigt den im Status Quo der verteilten Produktentwicklung vorliegenden Koordinationsbedarf auf. Offen ist, inwieweit aus der vertragsbasierten Supply Chain-Koordination bekannte Koordinationsformen und Vertragsarten zu einer Koordination der verteilten Produktentwicklung beitragen konnen. Ziel dieses Kapitels ist es daher, den Fall der dezentralen Planung unter Berucksichtigung ubergeordneter Ziele auf die verteilte Produktentwicklung anzuwenden und die Koordinationswirkung zweier Vertragsarten unter Zugrundelegung des in Abschnitt 4.1 vorgestellten Modells zu analysieren.

Coordination by Contracts in Decentralized Product Design Processes – Towards Efficient Compliance with Recycling Rates in the Automotive Industry

Design processes in the automotive industry are distributed over various companies. If fixed-price contracts are used to coordinate such collaborations, inefficiencies in the design process occur due to existing uncertainties and differing objectives of the partners. To make decentralized design processes more flexible and to reduce inefficiencies, we introduce the conceptual design of incentive contracts and apply it to the case of the compliance with recycling rates in the automotive industry.

Kritische Würdigung und Ausblick

Die kritische Wurdigung der vorliegenden Arbeit ist Gegenstand dieses Kapitels. Hierfur wird in Abschnitt 6.1 zunachst der erzielte Fortschritt gegenuber dem Stand der Forschung, insbesondere in Bezug auf die entwickelte Modellierung sowie die erzielten Erkenntnisse, gewurdigt. Daran anschliesend werden in Abschnitt 6.2 die Grenzen der Modellierung aufgezeigt und darauf aufbauend ein Ausblick auf weiteren Forschungsbedarf gegeben.