General Approach and Prerequisites for Transferring Factory Planning Methods on Flow Orientation and Transformability to Hospital Systems

Manufacturing companies are faced with the challenge of operating cost-efficiently and remaining competitive in a turbulent environment with constantly changing demands on production. To meet these challenges, factory planning has developed concepts of flow orientation and transformability. Through decades of research, factory planners now have extensive methodologies and numerous principles, enabling them to design factory objects appropriately and align factories to be flow-oriented and transformable. Hospitals face similar challenges like manufacturing companies. Due to public funding, many hospitals have limited financial resources and must, for example, cover parts of their financial requirements by themselves through cost-efficiency. In addition, hospitals are influenced by ongoing developments like demographic change and recent challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic. These and further examples not only tighten the economic situation of hospitals, but also force their systems to adapt to resulting challenges. They must successfully align their systems to remain operational under changing conditions. In contrast to factories, these issues have not been addressed sufficiently in the field of hospital planning. Therefore, factory planning approaches on flow orientation and transformability will be transferred to hospital systems in order to strengthen hospitals against globally existing and socially relevant challenges in the healthcare system. With the aim to realise this venture, this paper presents a structured approach for its implementation. It also investigates the fundamental similarities between factories and hospitals and examines whether the main prerequisites for the successful transfer of the approaches can be met

An Approach Towards Securing Future Viability Of SMEs In A VUCA World Using Artificial Intelligence To Increase Resilience

Global crises pose major challenges for production companies: Rising material and energy costs, supply bottlenecks and the lack of planning certainty due to the dynamics of a pandemic or war weaken the planning stability. In this volatile, uncertain, complex and ambivalent environment (VUCA world), companies need responsible employees who recognise the individual need for action and initiate concrete measures early to increase a company's resilience. These measures affect multiple divisions. For example, disruptions in the supply chain are mitigated by various configuration elements such as expanding the supplier network or increasing stock in the company's own production. Therefore, measures encompass every element of the value network, whether in production or logistics. The example also shows that measures to increase resilience can influence other target characteristics of a company: Inventory increases can buy resilience at the expense of resource efficiency. Thus, measures must be defined for each design element depending on individual requirements in terms of resilience and must consider the scope for action of the respective company. This poses a great challenge, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Here, decision-making is done by generalists who often do not have the detailed knowledge for this specific problem or the capacity for this additional task. The danger is that SMEs will take insufficient measures that do not secure their future viability in a VUCA world. In this paper, a solution approach for a methodology is presented, that allows to derive influences on production companies from the developments in a VUCA world and measures to increase resilience can be identified depending on individual company characteristics. Furthermore, a possible conceptualisation of the methodology in an AI-based software product is presented, which supports SMEs in the outlined complex problem by enabling them to apply the methodology. Both will be realised in a research project

Classification of Robustness and Resilience in Changeability

Turbulenzen im Fabrikumfeld stehen seit den Neunzigerjahren für einen permanenten Strukturwandel durch kontinuierliche Veränderungen, die Megatrends wie die Digitalisierung verstärken. Da die Prognosefähigkeit von Entwicklungen praktisch nicht mehr gegeben ist, basiert die Fabrikplanung auf Annahmen und geht im Gegensatz zu Entscheidungen unter Sicherheit mit Planungsrisiken einher. Um in diesem unsicheren Umfeld erfolgreich am Markt zu bestehen, benötigen Unternehmen veränderungsfähige Fabriken. Auf-grund der zunehmenden Organisation von Fabriken in Produktionsnetzwerken und einer steigenden Komplexität von Produktionsprozessen ist die Unsicherheit im Fabrikbetrieb zunehmend mit Risiken verbunden. Die Anzahl an störenden Ereignissen hat zugenommen, die zu einer Betriebsunterbrechung führen können. Deshalb haben vermehrt die Begriffe Robustheit und Resilienz Einzug in den Produktionskontext gehalten. Aktuell bleibt es unklar, wie genau die Fabrikplanung gestalterisch tätig werden kann, um dem Fabrikbetrieb den notwendigen Handlungsspielraum zu übertragen. Das Ziel dieses Artikels ist es deshalb, die Robustheit und Resilienz in den Kontext der Veränderungsfähigkeit einzuordnen, deren Konzepte bisher ausreichten, um Fabriken als elementares Strukturelement eines Produktionsnetzwerkes auf den Umgang mit turbulenten Einflüssen einzustellen.Turbulences in the factory environment have represented permanent structural transformation since the nineteen nineties through continuous changes that are intensified by megatrends such as digitalization. As the ability to forecast developments is practically non-existent, factory planning is based on assumptions and is associated with planning risks, in contrast to decisions made under certainty. In order to compete successfully on the market in this uncertain environment, companies need changeable factories. Due to the increasing organization of factories in production networks and a growing complexity of production processes, uncertainty in factory operation is increasingly associated with risks. The number of disturbing events has increased, which can lead to a business disruption. Therefore, the concepts of robustness and resilience have increasingly entered the production context. Currently, it remains unclear how exactly factory planning can take formative measures to give factory operation the necessary scope for action. Therefore, the goal of this article is to classify robustness and resilience in the context of changeability, whose concepts have been sufficient so far to adapt factories as an elementary structural element of a production network to handle turbulent influences

General Approach and Prerequisites for Transferring Factory Planning Methods on Flow Orientation and Transformability to Hospital Systems

Manufacturing companies are faced with the challenge of operating cost-efficiently and remaining competitive in a turbulent environment with constantly changing demands on production. To meet these challenges, factory planning has developed concepts of flow orientation and transformability. Through decades of research, factory planners now have extensive methodologies and numerous principles, enabling them to design factory objects appropriately and align factories to be flow-oriented and transformable. Hospitals face similar challenges like manufacturing companies. Due to public funding, many hospitals have limited financial resources and must, for example, cover parts of their financial requirements by themselves through cost-efficiency. In addition, hospitals are influenced by ongoing developments like demographic change and recent challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic. These and further examples not only tighten the economic situation of hospitals, but also force their systems to adapt to resulting challenges. They must successfully align their systems to remain operational under changing conditions. In contrast to factories, these issues have not been addressed sufficiently in the field of hospital planning. Therefore, factory planning approaches on flow orientation and transformability will be transferred to hospital systems in order to strengthen hospitals against globally existing and socially relevant challenges in the healthcare system. With the aim to realise this venture, this paper presents a structured approach for its implementation. It also investigates the fundamental similarities between factories and hospitals and examines whether the main prerequisites for the successful transfer of the approaches can be met