ProdLog-Design - Maturity-based development paths for performance-enhancing design of production logistics in small and medium-sized companies

Expectations of logistical performance in numerous industries are in no way inferior to the cost and quality requirements of customers of manufacturing companies[Baumgarten' 04, Barkawi' 06]. Logistically successful companies therefore grow faster and are more profitable than their competitors. The efficiency of the company's own production logistics is the focus of this research project as an essential guarantor for this success.

A methodology has been developed that allows companies to identify their essential configuration errors in production logistics and to take targeted measures to limit or eliminate them.

For this purpose, typical symptoms of discomfort were first identified in literature research and expert discussions in research and practice - problems that are immediately noticeable in the various hierarchical levels of industrial companies. After grouping these together to form so-called stumbling blocks in production logistics, the first interrelationships with the essential design aspects of production logistics that cause problems can already be identified. The developed stumbling blocks were systematically analyzed by means of a fault tree analysis with regard to their causes and thus approx. 300 configuration errors of the production logistics were identified, which are the cause of the mentioned failures. Within the scope of a search for existing maturity models, the main features of the widely used models EFQM and CMMI proved to be suitable and were incorporated into a newly developed maturity model of production logistics.

The configuration errors were assigned to the design aspects according to the "polluter pays" principle and derived criteria which indicate the existence of configuration errors aggregated into clusters. The findings have been incorporated into a degree of maturity morphology that offers the user up to four different characteristics for each criterion. These directly represent the maturity level for this criterion, which allows a simple, transparent and yet holistic evaluation of the discipline of production logistics.

Measures to improve individual criteria have already been incorporated into the formulation of maturity levels. In addition, they are summarized for criteria with a poor degree of maturity.

The results of the work - basics on production logistics, maturity model and measures - are made available to the user as part of an Excel VBA tool and further information via the website www.prodlog-design.de