Roland Jochem

Success factors and organizational approaches for the implementation of energy management systems according to ISO 50001

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify main success factors for the effective implementation, operation and certification of an energy management system (EnMS) in accordance with ISO 50001, which represents the fastest growing standard for management systems in the world (International Organization for Standardization, 2013). Design/methodology/approach – Due to rising energy costs, increasing global competitive pressure and the demand for environmentally friendly products companies all over the world consider the implementation of an EnMS to meet future challenges. For that reason a survey (Jochem et al., 2013) among already certified German companies has been conducted focussing on organizational, teambuilding and technical aspects. Findings – Results indicate that EnMSs are most commonly built on already existing management structures and therefore staff organization is crucial for the success of the project. Still, monetary aspects such as energy related cost savings seem to be the decisiv...

Empirical study on status of preparation for ISO 9001:2015

Purpose: The ISO 9000 family of standards is the most noted standard concerning quality management and its realisation. Over one million organisations are certified according to the requirements of ISO 9001 worldwide. Especially in Europe, this standard has an outstanding status. An ISO certification creates trust between customers, partners and suppliers. In addition, it drives the companies to improve continuously in order to get a recertification. For September 2015, a revision of the ISO 9001:2008 was published. It shows many differences compared to the version of 2008. These changes mean various challenges to companies, which want to get a recertification. A main modification is the risk-based approach, which requires that the companies plan and realise measures to treat risks and chances. Particularly in Europe, the ISO 9001 revision is one of the main topics of discussion in quality management. To investigate the current status how companies in Germany fulfil the additional requirements, and especially the challenge of risk consideration, the division for quality management of the Fraunhofer IPK conducted a study with 1175 participants. The paper will firstly address the changes mentioned and the associated challenges to give a good overview and show that the new ISO 9001:2015 offers the chance to improve for organisations. The main focus of the paper will be to present the results of the study and thereby to show the status of preparation for the new ISO 9001 of German companies of all sizes. Design/methodology/approach: After an introduction to the ISO 9001:2015 and its changes and challenges, the paper follows the same structure as the survey itself. It gives an overview of the demography and results of the study and ends with a conclusion. Findings: Most German companies neither consider themselves well prepared nor do they claim to possess sufficient knowledge about the new requirements included in the revised ISO 9001 standard. The need for action is especially great regarding the new requirements subsumed under the classification of risk-based thinking. The aforementioned applies to small and medium-sized enterprises as well as to large companies. Most organisations define risk as the effect of uncertainty with solely negative effects. Therefore, only a minority evaluates both risks and chances instead of only risks. Furthermore, enterprises mostly neglect planning of actions to address identified risks. Only in a few cases, companies do implement trainings to improve their employees’ capabilities regarding risk management. The afore-cited applies even though companies consider a lack of experience the main challenge related to the analysis and assessment of risks. Additionally, other newly established requirements of the ISO 9001:2015 are also only fulfilled by a minority of participants. These new requirements include the need for measures to determine the expectations of interested parties and the necessity that modi operandi are implemented which ensure that knowledge is maintained and made available to the extent necessary. Originality/value: The paper considers the study results from different angles and shows the changes and challenges of the ISO 9001:2015.

Planning and reorganising quality management organisations – an empirical analysis of current practice

In order to successfully compete in a high cost environment, enterprises must be highly adaptable to increased market dynamics and customer expectations, as well as shortened product lifecycles. Environmental changes have an immediate effect on organisational structures, making it more and more difficult to master the three basic organisational challenges: granting stability, efficiency and flexibility to put strategy into practice. This results in an organisational problem for quality management, namely that in order to assure high-quality products as a main competitive factor, quality management organisation must be planned and implemented according to dynamic surrounding conditions. Thus, planning and implementing quality-related processes and organisational structures has developed into an essential managerial discipline. This paper presents challenges, motives and success factors of planning and reorganising quality management organisations. An online survey on this topic was conducted between 20 November and 3 December 2014 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Overall, 411 answers were collected. The survey primarily included questions with alternative or selectable answers and, where suitable, a five-stage Likert scale was additionally applied. The gathered data were analysed with descriptive statistical methods and hypothesis testing. A long-term-oriented, pro-active planning approach towards quality structures was found to have a significant impact on appropriate QMO capabilities. However, a gap was discovered between the valuated importance of this active planning approach and current corporate practice. Divisional QMO structures were found superior over functional or matrix structures in terms of capability, planning, and reorganisation. Enterprises that aimed to improve product quality, as well as process quality, and to reduce interface were more successful in their QM reorganisations than those that aimed for cost cutting. The use of certain planning tools also increased success in this matter. Novel technologies and products as well as corporate growth were found to be the biggest challenges. Existing studies focus on general organisational structures. Due to the comparably high number of interfaces and strong product relation of QMO, planning and implementation activities pose a distinct challenge that requires specialised attention. Digitisation will increase the future number of reorganisations in manufacturing. As quality is one of the most important factors for contemporary entrepreneurial success, quality managers must be scientifically supported in order to close the gap between the importance of long-term planning and current practice. This paper contributes with an in-depth analysis.

Enforcing Front-Loading in Engineering Processes through Product-Process Integration

Front-Loading in product engineering is the art of shifting important decisions about process parameters into the very early design phases. These decisions will have to cover parameters of the product as well as its production. Front-Loading requires the integration of different engineering disciplines like product, process and manufacturing design and their dependencies. These disciplines adopt different modeling approaches and incompatible tools, which increases the effort for Front-Loading. This paper presents an approach for interoperability between models coming from different disciplines in order to facilitate integrated engineering during the first design phases by integrating product and process models and evaluate these. In addition, a contextual modeling approach for reducing model complexity to different stakeholder is introduced. The entire work is explained along an industrial use case in aircraft engineering.

Integration of Sustainability into the Corporate Strategy

In order to successfully achieve sustainable corporate development, enterprises have to define and implement a pragmatic strategy. In that pursuit, the discussion of motivation and reasoning behind incorporating sustainability strategies serves as a prelude to the thematic examination of challenges and courses of action in corporate strategy development and implementation. Especially in the context of sustainability, additional legislative and stakeholder requirement considerations make managing these tasks effectively, however, much more challenging. The firm’s overall objectives thus become multidimensional and have to be broken down to the individual departments and business fields. Consequently, considerable effort has to be devoted to the planning, measurement and evaluation, steering and control as well as optimisation and communication processes of the holistically defined corporate value creation. Furthermore, a solution for enterprise sustainability management and its evaluation is necessary for ultimately balancing economic, ecological and social performance factors, to ensure optimized decision-making.

Vielfalt und Stand der Open-Source-Hardware

Die letzten zehn Jahre bildeten den Schauplatz fur das Aufkommen einer Vielzahl von Projekten zur Entwicklung von Open-Source-Hardware (OSH), welche das dezentrale Entwicklungskonzept der Open-Source-Software (OSS) auf die Welt der physischen Produkte ubertragen. Diese Projekte sind gekennzeichnet durch die Offenlegung von technischen Daten zur Stimulation von Feedback, Replikation und kollaborativer Entwicklung. Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Nutzung des offentlichen Raums von OSH-Projekten, welcher durch das World Wide Web und Online-Plattformen zum gemeinsamen Datenaustausch bereitgestellt wird, um ihre Produkte als „open source“ zu veroffentlichen. Hierfur wird eine Stichprobe mit produktbezogenen Daten von 76 OSH-Produkten empirisch erhoben und bewertet. Einerseits werden dadurch Schlussfolgerungen zum derzeitig erreichten Entwicklungsstand des OSH-Feldes gezogen. Andererseits werden Verhaltensweisen von OSH-Projekten aufgezeigt und die Vielfalt an existierenden Ansatzen anhand von unterschiedlichen dokumentationsspezifischen Auspragungen eingeordnet.

Open Innovation-Erfolg mit der richtigen Methodenwahl

Kurzfassung Open Innovation gilt als vielversprechender Ansatz zur Sicherung des Innovationserfolgs, ist jedoch insbesondere in kleinen und mittelständischen Unternehmen kaum verbreitet. In diesem Beitrag wird ein Instrument beschrieben, welches Unternehmen bei der Umsetzung von Open Innovation unterstützen soll. Das Ergebnis sind konkrete Handlungsempfehlungen bezüglich der situationsspezifischen Anwendung von Open Innovation-Methoden.