33,261 research outputs found

    Automation from lean perspective-potentials and challenges

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    The competitive climate of production and high labour cost, motivate western companies to use technologies like automation as a mean to increase manufacturing competitiveness. On the other hand companies are aware about cost reductive policies like lean production which has shown noticeable achievement, consequently some manufacturers tend to follow such system. In this situation, in order to have lean enterprise, it is vital to find a clear picture of challenges and potentials of implementing automation within a lean environment. So, finding the right level and type of automation becomes vital for companies, and achieving this is not possible without a lean development of automation. The paper presents an overview of automation development from a lean perspective. The focus is on manufacturing and a case study in the automotive industry is presented. Challenges and potentials of automation are pinpointed and some suggestions regarding automation development is given

    Evaluating the benefits of product and packaging integration

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    The success of a company increasingly depends on the efficiency and effectiveness on its activities along the product life cycle. In the effort of optimizing its activities, companies must integrate themselves. Due to the significance packaging has within many of these activities, it is of utmost importance to integrate product and packaging development activities in order to optimize processes. It was shown in previous studies the interest that companies have on putting into practice such integration. Nevertheless, it is not clear either the possible benefits resulting from the implementation of product and packaging integration at an operational level or the appropriate manner to carry out such implementation. Through a multiple case study, several products within mechanical actual industry and which show, at some extent, product and packaging integration, are analyzed. By means of the product cases? analysis, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the advantages that companies gain by changing present activities to the suggested concept. The integration performed by the companies studied will be analyzed and connected to the development procedure model proposed by Bramkiev et al (2005). From the contributing companies? results, this study concludes that integration performance involves noticeable improvements along product life cycle processes. In particular, the distribution costs and the quality of processes in general, are the most benefited aspects by packaging integration. The results emphasize the importance of packaging in logistical activities considering help-in-distribution as maybe the most important characteristic of packaging. It is believed that taking into account earlier in the development process, packaging and other activities requirements, guarantees a more efficient product development reducing the risk of failure and consequent need of redesign. Development procedure models are declared very important tools for the companies in order to facilitate the work and organize activities. All the product development procedures for every case and company have similar structures to each other because even when things are called different the idea is the same. However, packaging development processes do not match that much to a generic model. Packaging integration has shown to be performed in a wide variety of approaches but always resulting on benefits for the companies. The results of the study show a clear support to the model proposed by Bramklev et al (2005); the higher the integration is performed, the higher the benefits are obtained

    Integrated product relationships management : a model to enable concurrent product design and assembly sequence planning

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    The paper describes a novel approach to product relationships management in the context of concurrent engineering and product lifecycle management (PLM). Current industrial practices in product data management and manufacturing process management systems require better efficiency, flexibility, and sensitivity in managing product information at various levels of abstraction throughout its lifecycle. The aim of the proposed work is to manage vital yet complex and inherent product relationship information to enable concurrent product design and assembly sequence planning. Indeed, the definition of the product with its assembly sequence requires the management and the understanding of the numerous product relationships, ensuring consistency between the product and its components. This main objective stresses the relational design paradigm by focusing on product relationships along its lifecycle. This paper gives the detailed description of the background and models which highlight the need for a more efficient PLM approach. The proposed theoretical approach is then described in detail. A separate paper will focus on the implementation of the proposed approach in a PLM-based application, and an in-depth case study to evaluate the implementation of the novel approach will also be given

    Scenarios for the Strategic Planning of Technologies

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    Manufacturing based corporations often find themselves confronted with complexities of increased pressures to innovate in order to ensure their comparative market positions. In order to react to various exogenous changes corporations need to develop strategies that match their manufacturing resources as well as products with the markets requirements. Technology scenarios represent a holistic approach for managing innovation processes and technologies efficiently. A multidimensional requirement catalogue for specific product- market- combinations represents the fundamental building block for the ranking of particular material- components and technologies. The following analysis through evolutionary algorithms for compatibility between and amongst them provides the necessary information about their suitability. The resulting scenarios and roadmap and a regular monitoring process are prerequisite for the managerial decision making process and the implementation technology strategies.Manufacturing based corporations often find themselves confronted with complexities of increased pressures to innovate in order to ensure their comparative market positions. In order to react to various exogenous changes corporations need to develop strategies that match their manufacturing resources as well as products with the markets requirements. Technology scenarios represent a holistic approach for managing innovation processes and technologies efficiently. A multidimensional requirement catalogue for specific product- market- combinations represents the fundamental building block for the ranking of particular material- components and technologies. The following analysis through evolutionary algorithms for compatibility between and amongst them provides the necessary information about their suitability. The resulting scenarios and roadmap and a regular monitoring process are prerequisite for the managerial decision making process and the implementation technology strategies.Manufacturing based corporations often find themselves confronted with complexities of increased pressures to innovate in order to ensure their comparative market positions. In order to react to various exogenous changes corporations need to develop strategies that match their manufacturing resources as well as products with the markets requirements. Technology scenarios represent a holistic approach for managing innovation processes and technologies efficiently. A multidimensional requirement catalogue for specific product- market- combinations represents the fundamental building block for the ranking of particular material- components and technologies. The following analysis through evolutionary algorithms for compatibility between and amongst them provides the necessary information about their suitability. The resulting scenarios and roadmap and a regular monitoring process are prerequisite for the managerial decision making process and the implementation technology strategies

    Improving the Availability of Manufacturability Information through Decentralization of Process Planning

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    Process planning is part of the general product development and production process that usually follows design and precedes manufacturing. Manufacturability and process planning information in general play central role in many product development and production activities, including paradoxically, conceptual and detail design - the activities that take place before process planning. The need of conducting some of the process planning activities formally before or during design is thus rather obvious. One of the main research issues is therefore the identification of the process planning activities that can be performed before the traditional process planning phase and handling of the process planning information so as to adequately provide the designers with the manufacturability informationneeded during conceptual and detail design. Another issue is how to support collaboration during process planning and how to maintain continuity of the process planning tasks. This paper suggests the decentralization of the process planning task and proposes the execution of the process planning activities in a piecemeal fashion, starting right afterreceiving an order and specifying the requirements for a product. Process planning under the proposed procedure consists of six semi-autonomous sub-phases, some of which comprise activities that must be conducted prior to the process planning phase. This helps to overcome the problem of timely availability of manufacturability information during the execution of upstream and downstream product development and production activities. The paper alsoproposes a computer-based method of handling the manufacturability information generated in various stages of the product development and production process. A database design and structure of prototype software that manages the process planning information are presented and discussed. Furthermore, a case study conducted to explore howthe proposed process planning procedure could be put in use is presented and discussed

    What is the Future of Strategic Management?

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    The history of planning and creating strategies has a past of over half a century. Throughout this lifetime period we have witnessed both the evolution of theory and practice. The MBA study books in the last-third of the 20th century have with predilection exhibited this very process as a complex of monetary centered budget planning, forecast-based planning, strategic planning and strategic management. There might be a controversy existing about the naming, characteristics and timing of these different sections but there is an accordance that the changes that we have taken place in the last decade as a whole without a doubt can be derived from these very changes in the business environment or in some outstanding cases (like 9/11) they can be acknowledged as the ability of corporate foreseeing and the ability to adapt to the vision of the future. The main purposes of the research is to provide a summarized picture about the changing process of this procedure during last decades as far as the planning and creating strategies are concerned and also their milestones and periods. Try to explore and systemize the very aspects of these changes. The happenings of the first decade of the new millennium are outstandingly interesting if we consider their real effect on the theory and practice of strategic management. Let us remember the euphoria around the year 2000, the predictions of „new technologies”, „new economy”, „new organization” and „new leadership”. We have implied before on the destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center which meant a new era, a new quality of international terrorism and its consequences (Afghanistan, Iraq). But the „product” of this decade is the strategic aim that companies focus on, which is the social responsibility regarding the unavoidance of the effects of climate change on the long run. During the research the big question has risen concerning how did the science of strategic management do as far as the predictions of the global monetary and economic crisis are concerned? And also its solutions this very science has to offer in order to handle and get over the crisis. Does it conclude from the answers given to the questions that a change in paradigms are necessary, a new quality is needed or may be we have come to a new crossroad of the development process that will take over strategic management? (...

    Production Engineering and Management

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    The annual International Conference on Production Engineering and Management takes place for the sixth time his year, and can therefore be considered a well - established event that is the result of the joint effort of the OWL University of Applied Sciences and the University of Trieste. The conference has been established as an annual meeting under the Double Degree Master Program ‘Production Engineering and Management’ by the two partner universities. The main goal of the conference is to provide an opportunity for students, researchers and professionals from Germany, Italy and abroad, to meet and exchange information, discuss experiences, specific practices and technical solutions used in planning, design and management of production and service systems. In addition, the conference is a platform aimed at presenting research projects, introducing young academics to the tradition of Symposiums and promoting the exchange of ideas between the industry and the academy. Especially the contributions of successful graduates of the Double Degree Master Program ‘Production Engineering and Management’ and those of other postgraduate researchers from several European countries have been enforced. This year’s special focus is on Direct Digital Manufacturing in the context of Industry 4.0, a topic of great interest for the global industry. The concept is spreading, but the actual solutions must be presented in order to highlight the practical benefits to industry and customers. Indeed, as Henning Banthien, Secretary General of the German ‘Plattform Industrie 4.0’ project office, has recently remarked, “Industry 4.0 requires a close alliance amongst the private sector, academia, politics and trade unions” in order to be “translated into practice and be implemented now”. PEM 2016 takes place between September 29 and 30, 2016 at the OWL University of Applied Sciences in Lemgo. The program is defined by the Organizing and Scientific Committees and clustered into scientific sessions covering topics of main interest and importance to the participants of the conference. The scientific sessions deal with technical and engineering issues, as well as management topics, and include contributions by researchers from academia and industry. The extended abstracts and full papers of the contributions underwent a double - blind review process. The 24 accepted presentations are assigned, according to their subject, to one of the following sessions: ‘Direct Digital Manufacturing in the Context of Industry 4.0’, ‘Industrial Engineering and Lean Management’, ‘Management Techniques and Methodologies’, ‘Wood Processing Technologies and Furniture Production’ and ‘Innovation Techniques and Methodologies

    Life Cycle of Multi Technology Machine Tools – Modularization and Integral Design

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    AbstractFor reasons of high flexibility but still maximum productivity, machine tools integrating various production technologies have recently received particular attention. Combining and integrating multiple manufacturing techniques into one single system in early stages of the product emergence process is challenging. To keep the effort for implementation to a minimum, an initiation already in the concept phase is being actively pursued. Design guidelines are currently investigated based on the examination of different technology combinations.This approach focuses on systematic conceptual design for such hybrid machine technologies. Product architectures are used to describe the modularity and create a specific delimitation for standardization. Reference product architectures for Multi Technology Machine Tools (MTMT) carry high potential for saving expenses in product development. The main emphasis is on technology and system integration. A technological similarity assessment of the single processes involved forms the basis of this approach to assure potential for synergies. Monetary aspects in early stages of product development are considered. Based on the analysis a generic system model is connected with general product architectures for MTMT.The method introduced is validated by a Multi-Technology Machining Centre with two simultaneously usable workspaces integrating a milling spindle and two laser processing units. The research undertaken is part of the Cluster of Excellence “Integrative Production Technology for High-Wage Countries” and has been funded by German Research Foundation (DFG)

    Local Agenda 21 and ecological urban restructuring: An European model project in Leipzig

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    AGENDA 21 as one of the final resolutions of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro stresses in chapter 28 the important role of cities, towns and communities in globally sustainable development. One of the most important European model projects in this respect was carried out in Leipzig from 1993 to 1997. The Leipzig Ostraum Project was supported through the LIFE support program of the European Union with the largest subsidy awarded till that time (4,3 mill. DM, with a total project budget of about 20 mill. DM). The central goal of this project is the use, testing and further development of present knowledge with regard to sustainable urban restructuring in combination with innovative strategies of economic and employment policies. The scope of traditional urban ecology is extended to comprise adjacent rural areas and to revitalize regional material flows. In the meantime, affiliated projects have won support by the THERMIE program of the European Union and the EXWOST-program of the German Federal Ministry of Construction. This paper reports on the most important results of the Leipzig Project to date. In particular, the authors show that the concept of ecological urban restructuring and the Local Agenda 21 are in harmony with one another and can play a decisive role in stimulating consensus on future urban development. All urban actors can be winners in this process. Difficulties arose, however, through dishonest use of financial support by the project agency. -- Die AGENDA 21, Abschlußdokument der UN-Konferenz ĂŒber Umwelt und Entwicklung im Juni 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, betont in ihrem Kapitel 28 die Rolle der Kommunen, StĂ€dte und Gemeinden bei einer global zukunftsfĂ€higen Entwickung (sustainable development). Eines der wichtigsten europĂ€ischen Modellprojekte zu diesem Thema wurde in den Jahren 1993 bis 1997 in Leipzig durchgefĂŒhrt. Zentrale Zielstellung des mit der bisher höchsten Fördersumme aus dem LIFEProgramm der EuropĂ€ischen Kommission (4,3 Mio DM bei einem Projektvolumen von knapp 20 Mio DM) geförderten Leipziger Ostraum-Projektes ist die Anwendung und Weiterentwicklung des Erkenntnisstandes zum Thema des zukunftsfĂ€higen StĂ€dtebaus in Kombination mit innovativen Strategien einer ökologischen Wirtschafts- und BeschĂ€ftigungspolitik. Die traditionelle Stadtökologie wird erweitert durch die Einbeziehung der Umlandgemeinden und die Revitalisierung regionaler StoffkreislĂ€ufe. Inzwischen sind ergĂ€nzende Tochterprojekte mit Förderung aus dem THERMIE-Programm der EuropĂ€ischen Kommission und dem EXWOST-Programm des Bundesbauministeriums eingeworben werden. In dem Paper wird ĂŒber die wichtigsten bisherigen Ergebnisse des Projektes berichtet. Insbesondere wird gezeigt, daß die Konzepte des Ökologischen Stadtumbaus und der Lokalen Agenda 21 miteinander harmonieren und eine konsensstiftende Funktion in der zukĂŒnftigen Stadtentwicklung ĂŒbernehmen können. Alle stĂ€dtischen Akteure können Winner in diesem Prozeß sein. Durch unredlichen Umgang des ProjekttrĂ€gers mit den Fördergeldern war das Leipziger Projekt in jĂŒngster Zeit allerdings in Schwierigkeiten geraten.

    The Value of Design-led Innovation in Chinese SMEs

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    Organised by: Cranfield UniversityThis paper focuses on understanding the role and use of design-led innovation in Chinese SMEs. The insights were gained by undertaking a pilot study, based on an applied developmental research approach involving participatory workshops, quantitative and qualitative positioning activities, in depth case studies and an individual pilot project undertaken with SMEs in the Pearl River Delta [PRD] over an 18 month period. It will discuss the findings, highlighting key areas of uncertainty that SMEs experience when attempting to make the transition from OEM to OBM, and how the findings have contributed to the development of a new design-led innovation framework.Mori Seiki – The Machine Tool Compan
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