Stephan Printz

A survey on risk-management and tooling support for procurement processes in supply chains

Managing risks in supply chains is challenging for most companies given that the globalisation process is strengthening production constraints and also introducing more procurements risks. This is difficult for smaller companies in particular as they lack the resources necessary to develop specific expertise or buy expensive tools. Our research aims to address these issues by proposing an easy to use, yet powerful, tool-supported methodology. As a first step, we conducted a survey of the relevant industries, which were mostly based in Germany and Belgium. The goal of the survey was to assess the current state of risk management practices and identify the associated requirements specific to our SME target. This paper presents the outcomes of our survey based on the results collected from a representative sample of 70 participating companies. These results yield interesting observations regarding the characterisation of the people in charge of risk management, their perception of the importance of risk categories, the current ways to manage these risks and the tooling used. We also collected several recommendations for how tools could better support risk assessment and drive the rest of our research.

Fuzzy Logic Approach for Sustainability Assessment Based on the Integrative Sustainability Triangle

The energy revolutions goal is to transform the current energy system into a sustainable system based on renewable energy technologies (RET). Even though RET are generally acknowledged as low-emission technologies with positive connotations, there are also negative impacts on ecological, economic and social environments throughout their life cycle. In order to support decision makers in building a sustainable energy system, comprehensive and easily understandable sustainability assessment-tools are required. Current approaches based on methods like Life Cycle Assessment or Multi-Criteria-Decision-Analysis have weaknesses in terms of comprehensiveness, processing of uncertainty and subjectivity, and visualization of results. In this paper, the holistic Fuzzy Logic Approach for Sustainability Assessment Based on the Integrative Sustainability Triangle (Fuzzy-IST) is proposed in order to resolve these weaknesses. Quantitative and qualitative Basic Sustainability Indicators of all sustainability dimensions and life cycle stages are hierarchically processed in a multi-stage fuzzy system. This results in seven crisp Sustainability Dimension Indices and a General Sustainability Index. The crisp values are then visualized in a color-coded Integrative Sustainability Triangle to provide an easy and intuitive interpretation of the results. This allows for the identification of deficits in all dimensions and the deduction of fields of action to improve the overall sustainability of RET.

Query-based risks management of manufacturing processes

Managing risks in supply chains is challenging for most companies, given the globalisation process which is strengthening the production constraints and also introducing more procurements risks. This is especially difficult for smaller companies because they generally lack resources to develop a specific expertise or buy expensive tools. Our research aims at addressing those issues by proposing an easy to use, yet powerful simulation framework based on Discrete Event Simulation. In our previous work we demonstrated the expressiveness of our modelling language and the efficiency of our simulation framework. The focus of this paper is on the usability dimension of the developed tool. We describe the global process driving the company through the whole risk control process, from identification, modelling, simulation and analysis. We demonstrate our ideas on a web-based prototype composed on a number of wizards and component supporting the structured analysis of simulation outcome in direct relation with the risks.

A Discrete Event Simulation Approach for Quantifying Risks in Manufacturing Processes

Nowadays supply chains have to face an increasing number of risks related to the globalisation, especially impacting the procurement processes. Even though tools are available to help companies in addressing those risks, most companies, even larger ones, still have problems to adequately quantify the risks and assess to what extend an alternative could address them. The aim of our work is to provide companies with a software supported methodology to quantify such risks and elaborate adequate risk mitigation strategies at an optimal cost. Based on a survey conducted about the risk management practices and needs within companies, we developed a tool that enables a constant focus on risks by enabling the easy expression of key risks together with the process model and hence help to focus the granularity of the model at the right level. A model-based simulator can then efficiently evaluate these risks thanks to well-known Monte-Carlo simulation techniques. Our main technical contribution lies in the development of an efficient discrete event simulation (DES) engine together with a query language which can be used to measure business risks based on simulation results. We demonstrate the expressiveness and performance of our approach by benchmarking it on a set of cases originating from the industry and covering a large set of risk categories.

Requirements Gathering and Validation for Risk-Oriented Tool Support in Supply Chains

Managing risks in supply chains is challenging for most companies, given that the globalisation process is strengthening production constraints and also introducing more procurements risks. This is even more difficult for smaller companies because of their lack of resources to develop specific expertise or buy expensive tools. In order to be successful, a project aiming at improving the state of practice in this area must address two key activities: gaining a good knowledge of the actual needs and validating the results. This paper reports about the process followed for supporting those activities using an agile approach. It relies on an initial survey conducted in companies, mostly from the manufacturing domain in Belgium and Germany together with the deeper involvement of 10 companies which provided concrete requirements directly linked with validation cases. We present the main outcome of the requirements gathering process, especially the survey analysis, as well as the lessons learned about our iterative validation process.

Long Term Examination of the Profitability Estimation Focused on Benefits

Strategic investment decisions are characterized by high innovation potential and long-term effects on the competitiveness of enterprises. Due to the uncertainty and risks involved in this complex decision making process, the need arises for well-structured support activities. A method that considers cost and the long-term added value is the cost-benefit effectiveness estimation. One of those methods is the “profitability estimation focused on benefits – PEFB”-method developed at the Institute of Management Cybernetics at RWTH Aachen University. The method copes with the challenges associated with strategic investment decisions by integrating long-term non-monetary aspects whilst also mapping the chronological sequence of an investment within the organization’s target system. Thus, this method is characterized as a holistic approach for the evaluation of costs and benefits of an investment. This participation-oriented method was applied to business environments in many workshops. The results of the workshops are a library of more than 96 cost aspects, as well as 122 benefit aspects. These aspects are preprocessed and comparatively analyzed with regards to their alignment to a series of risk levels. For the first time, an accumulation and a distribution of cost and benefit aspects regarding their impact and probability of occurrence are given. The results give evidence that the PEFB-method combines precise measures of financial accounting with the incorporation of benefits. Finally, the results constitute the basics for using information technology and data science for decision support when applying within the PEFB-method.

Adaption of the profitability estimation focused on benefits due to personal affection

Strategic investment decisions are characterized by high innovation potential and long term effects on the competitiveness of enterprises. Due to uncertainty and risk in this complex decision-making situation, the need for well-structured support activities arises. A method that considers cost and the long-term added value is the cost-benefit effectiveness estimation. One of those methods is the “profitability estimation focused on benefits – PEFB”-method (trans. Savelsberg 2008) developed at the institute of management cybernetics at RWTH Aachen University in 2000, by weyDanDT in the course of his PhD. This method copes with the challenge of strategic investment decision by integrating long term non-monetary aspects as well as by mapping the chronological sequence of an investment within the organisation ́s target system. For that reason, this method is characterised as a holistic approach for the evaluation of costs and benefits of an investment. In applying this participation-oriented method in business environment, the overall interdisciplinary investment teams were formed by more than 500 participants. Due to feedback of these participants within accomplished assessments, a survey with 110 participants was conducted focussing on the statements of verbal probability. The results of the survey identified a structural deficit in the conception of the methodology regarding the estimation of probabilities due to personal affection. This paper describes the well-structured PEFB-method to reduce risk and uncertainty in decision making progress. Moreover, the results of the survey concerning the bias due to personal affection within the evaluation process are 1 Institute for Management Cybernetics e.V. assoc. Institute of RWTH Aachen University E-mails: stephan.printz@ima-zlw-ifu.rwth-aachen.de, rene.vossen@ima-zlw-ifu.rwthaachen.de, sabina.jeschke@ima-zlw-ifu.rwth-aachen.de http://dx.doi.org/10.14195/978-989-26-1039-9_11 250 addressed. Finally, to achieve more accurate PEFB-method results, recommendations for an adaption of the PEFB are given.