Till Potente

Self-optimising Production Systems

One of the central success factors for production in high-wage countries is the solution of the conflict that can be described with the term “planning efficiency”. Planning efficiency describes the relationship between the expenditure of planning and the profit generated by these expenditures. From the viewpoint of a successful business management, the challenge is to dynamically find the optimum between detailed planning and the immediate arrangement of the value stream. Planning-oriented approaches try to model the production system with as many of its characteristics and parameters as possible in order to avoid uncertainties and to allow rational decisions based on these models. The success of a planning-oriented approach depends on the transparency of business and production processes and on the quality of the applied models. Even though planning-oriented approaches are supported by a multitude of systems in industrial practice, an effective realisation is very intricate, so these models with their inherent structures tend to be matched to a current stationary condition of an enterprise. Every change within this enterprise, whether inherently structural or driven by altered input parameters, thus requires continuous updating and adjustment. This process is very cost-intensive and time-consuming; a direct transfer onto other enterprises or even other processes within the same enterprise is often impossible. This is also a result of the fact that planning usually occurs a priori and not in real-time. Therefore it is hard for completely planning-oriented systems to react to spontaneous deviations because the knowledge about those naturally only comes a posteriori.

Approach for Reducing Data Inconsistencies in Production Control

Companies of the manufacturing industry gather a high number of different high-resolution data concerning production and manufacturing processes. Advanced Planning and Scheduling Systems use these data sets collected on the shop-floor in order to adjust their scheduling for near- and middle-term production orders. Usually, the quality of these production feedback data is reduced by inconsistencies and errors which impairs the results of the planning process. The consequence is a low adherence to planned delivery dates. In this paper typical data inconsistencies are analysed for their rate of occurrence and an approach for reducing data inconsistencies by applying association rule induction is proposed.

Cyber-Physical Production Management

Today a high adherence to delivery dates is the main logistic target for manufacturing companies. To control the increasing complexity of production planning and control manufacturing companies use IT systems. However, the applied IT systems often do not provide a reliable forecast of delivery dates and thus affect the required adherence to delivery dates. The paper describes a cyber-physical approach to optimize the production planning and control towards a reliable detailed planning. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the deviations between the production schedule of the IT system and the production processes in reality. With the knowledge of the revealed deviations and their causes the process of production planning can be adjusted towards a more dependable high resolution production planning and control.

Self-Optimizing Decision-Making in Production Control

This paper deals with the concept for self-optimizing decision-making in production planning and control. The concept is based on a value stream that provides real-time production data. This data enables a qualified decision regarding production planning and control. Practice has shown that production systems with a high production process complexity—such as job shop production with low volume production—are difficult to control automatically. Therefore, employees have an important role to play but need to be supported regarding their decision-making. The goal is to highlight relevant decisions and put them into the correct context. An unconventional and interactive illustration that abandons classic numerical key performance indicators helps to derive the correct decisions. Varying levels of detail regarding the depicted data allow the user to “zoom” in or out of the state of his production system. By support of simulation and visualization tools, the aim of this paper is to present a concept for self-optimizing decision-making in production control in order to help user making the right decision.

Shifting Bottlenecks in Production Control

Since Goldratt’s novel “The Goal” in 1984 the importance of bottlenecks has first been published, it is the subject of several research activities in the field of production control. Depending on the industry sector and their organizational structure in production, the consideration of bottlenecks within the production control concept can be very difficult. Particularly shifting bottlenecks are causing many problems as no sufficient concept for production structures with complex material flows has been developed so far. Therefore the latest research activities at the Laboratory of Machine Tools and Production Engineering of Aachen University focus on this kind of productions. Based on these several industrial case studies have been carried out for validation. The challenges and results will be described in the following.

Web-based value stream oriented simulation of production control

Production control faces the challenge to cope with high market dynamics and high complexity in production structures. Therefore, simulation is often used to configure production control properly. Today, the generation and configuration of these simulation models need expert knowledge and cause high costs. The presented approach shows how simulation models can be generated in short times and without expert knowledge within simulation. Therefore a web-based platform is configured, which enables the employees to generate a simulation model of the production. Since the structure of these simulation models is modular, the employees can upload input data and chose different strategies of production control by themselves in order to optimize their current production control. By integration of employees within the simulation generation process, the acceptance in simulation and in simulation results increases.

Innovative Approaches for Global Production Networks

The continuous growth of production networks has led to a threefold complexity issue for multinational companies. Firstly, it lies in the tremendous number of design options taking into regard all product groups and their production processes which need to be allocated to the amount of existing or new production sites. The second complexity issue is characterized by a short amount of time available in companies for highly important decisions. The third complexity problem lies in the complexity evaluation within the production network taking into account product, manufacturing and organisational structures. These three challenges are addressed within the scope of an approach which avails itself of a digital tool using interactive computing methods. While the complexity of the solution space is handled through a mathematical optimization, visual components help to understand and analyze the given solution through interactive computing. The identification of complexity drivers within production networks constitutes the final challenge.

Gamification in Management Decisions: Judging Global Production Networks in a Cyber-Physical Way

The judgment of global production networks is facing three major challenges. The complexity, measurable through the huge solution space, as well as the time-consuming preparation of a decision in line with the limited amount of time of the final decision makers – CEOs and upper management. The experience from several industry projects showed the demand to transfer and apply the concept of gamification in a cyber-physical environment to decision-making in Global Footprint Design. Smart IT tools, which support the intuition and practical knowledge of the decision maker but do not finally make the decision for them, are needed. Based on general criteria for successful gamified IT tools three specific requirements for judging global production networks are derived: value creation, ludic goal orientation and autonomous discovery. The major challenges and these specified principles of gamification are addressed within the scope of an IT tool which simplifies and improves complex global footprint decisions by employing elements of gamification. It is analysed to which degree the criteria are already fulfilled, which benefits this prototype of a gamified IT tool can offer and what future research has to be conducted in order to fully let CEOs game their global footprint strategy.

High Resolution Information Management Decentralized and Self Optimizing Manufacturing Control in a Multi Machine Operating Environment

Absorbing the dynamics in production and to stabilize the production processes requires high efforts in order control. Today’s IT-systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) are specialized in planning technical resources and optimizing deterministic sequences. Inconsistencies in planning have to be compensated by the operational staff at the latest. The vision of High Resolution Information Management (HRIM) is to build upon decentralized and adaptive control mechanisms for the workers in contrast to the traditional centralized control paradigm. In using context information, creating transparency through information and evaluating alternatives in the decision making process, the workers can better be enabled in handling the dynamic inherent in the system. The centralized structure of the companywide planning and control system will therefore not be abolished on the operational area but completed by decentralized self controlling structures.

Towards a Technology-Oriented Theory of Production

Manufacturing companies in high-wage countries—one of the pillars of the European national economies—are particularly exposed to changes in global markets and rising market volatility. It is therefore necessary that manufacturers in these countries not only focus on reducing costs, but instead address the entire set of commonly defined operational capabilities: cost, quality, flexibility, and delivery performance. Although the optimization of these factors has been viewed since long as being largely mutually exclusive, we argue that advances in modern production technology might enable the resolution of the involved dichotomous relationships. In this chapter, we hence aim at presenting a technology-oriented theory of production that operationalizes the link between technological advances and possibilities to strengthen the four competitive priorities of manufacturing companies. For this purpose, existing production theories are first reviewed to ground and classify our theory. We subsequently formalize the technology-oriented theory by adopting a profitability assessment perspective derived from the insights of all projects within the Cluster of Excellence Integrative Production for High-Wage Countries.