SFB 489 - Evaluation of measures in production

Due to an increasingly complex and dynamic business environment, companies in all industries are confronted with increasing price and cost pressure. In order to remain competitive, constant investment is needed to improve logistical performance. Due to the difficulty of raising capital after the financial crisis, it is all the more important to be able to assess upcoming investment decisions with regard to their effect on logistical and monetary targets. Only this comprehensive analysis allows an economically justified selection of measures. The many years of project experience of the Institute for Factory Facilities and Logistics have shown that it is possible to realize potential for cost reduction with relatively low investments, especially in production. For example, the lead time can be reduced by harmonising order times and adherence to deadlines can be significantly increased. Unfortunately, there is currently a lack of a generally valid procedure that allows the economic effect of logistical measures in production to be assessed in monetary terms.

 Within the scope of the subproject C2 "Logistical Characteristics" of the Collaborative Research Center 489, such an approach was developed especially for a rigid chained forging process chain and implemented in a software demonstrator. The decision logic, which takes into account both logistical and monetary targets, is based on a driver tree, the production characteristics and transfer functions that enable a monetary evaluation of a changed logistics performance. During the course of the project, it was determined that many of the inherent transfer functions and assumptions are highly forge-specific. Generally valid modelling has not yet been possible within the framework of SFB 489. In order to give companies from other industries the opportunity to evaluate the effects of measure-induced improvements in logistics performance in production in monetary terms with regard to their economic efficiency, generally valid models are developed in this transfer project, implemented in a software demonstrator and then validated on the basis of real company data from various industries. Following the validation, the demonstrator will be made available free of charge as open source, e. g. via the SFB 489 homepage for interested companies. 

 In order to ensure universal validity, it is crucial to involve as many different industries as possible in the transfer project. Siemens AG is represented in a large number of different business areas and industries, making it the ideal partner for the proposed research project.