Volume 119, Issue 6

In the course of a factory planning process, various limitations occur that can influence a factory concept. These are often summarized under the terms ‘constraints’, ‘limitations’, ‘restrictions’, and ‘requirements’ without a clear definition, but they are by no means synonyms. This article makes a classification into the four types: ‘strategic conditions’, ‘constraints’, ‘equipment restrictions’, and ‘building and site restrictions’. The limitation types are differentiated according to their character – material and immaterial – and their origin – intrinsic and extrinsic. This distinction not only serves to clarify the understanding of the terms, but also to integrate them into the planning process.

It is important for manufacturing companies to have changeable structures that enable rapid and cost-efficient adaptations to changing requirements. An important aspect in adapting factory structures is the dynamic characteristics of changeability. In addition to the fulfilment of changed requirements, structural adaptations influence the degree of changeability of a factory itself and can thus affect the degree of planning freedom in future periods. This article provides a methodology for planning structural adaptations that can be used to analyse and evaluate the possible impact of a structural adaptation on the factory‘s changeability. The aim is to avoid planning errors and ensure the development of long-term economic factory structures.

The circular economy is seen as an outstanding opportunity to address the global challenges of climate change and resource scarcity. This is achieved by narrowing, extending and ultimately closing resource cycles. When implementing a circular economy, however, a major challenge is to return a company‘s products after their utilisation phases in order to initiate value-preserving or valueenhancing activities. This article analyses and structures incentives for facilitating the retrieval of products using practical examples and expert workshops.

Today‘s economy is undergoing fundamental change with regard to digitalization and automation. Constantly growing market complexity and dynamics as well as the demographic change are shifting the skills required of employees and demanding a high level of flexibility by companies. In addition to the appropriate deployment of employees, there is a need to identify the skills required in the future at an early stage.

Knowledge management is becoming an increasingly relevant topic for small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs) – especially in production. This article demonstrates how to introduce an encompassing knowledge management solution in practice. An exemplary use case is presented to illustrate the application, introduction, implementation and challenges of knowledge management. The article shows solution approaches and initial implementation successes.

The absence of individual key personnel can have a significant impact on companies’ business operations. It is therefore important for companies to analyse business-critical processes and secure them through knowledge management activities. In this article, we present the characteristics of business-critical processes and a tool for identifying and prioritising them, thereby making an important contribution to preventive, systematic knowledge management.

The quality in the product creation process is of crucial importance for manufacturing companies in terms of customer satisfaction and thus economic success. However, a growing variety and increasing product requirements pose challenges to the achievable product quality and the necessary processes. As a result, quality defects often occur in the development, manufacturing, and the application of a product. To be able to sustainably learn from the errors that have occurred and to initiate a suitable process of continuous product improvement as a company, the introduction of QRQC (Quick Response Quality Control) may be necessary. To illustrate the implementation of such a methodological approach, this article exemplarily presents the introduction and functionality of a problem-solving system at Liebherr Hydraulikbagger GmbH.

The Dresden Model of Adaptability (DreMoWabe for short) presents key aspects of the human-technology-organization approach and the transformation enablers commonly found in the Literature. Together with the design levels of networked value creation, company level, factory planning, human-machine interaction and machine level identified as essential, this results in a three-dimensional structure. It thus serves as a reference and regulatory framework to enable production companies to describe and evaluate their own adaptability in a model and to react more quickly to changes in the production environment on the basis of criteria and corresponding recommendations.

The intensifying competitive pressures in manufacturing companies, combined with the expanding array of product variants, are propelling the integration of human-robot collaboration in operational frameworks. Effectively planning assembly processes demands particularly streamlined methods for assessing execution times, especially in the initial planning phases. While predetermined motion time systems are designed for human tasks, this contribution puts forth an approach for the time-economic analysis of robot movements without resorting to simulation.

Due to the high physical demands of many manual work activities in intralogistics and the economic consequences of the resulting sickness-related absences, exoskeletons are becoming increasingly important. By physically relieving and actively supporting employees, work tasks can be made more ergonomic and the challenges mentioned can be counteracted. However, the variety of exoskeletons available on the market presents companies with major challenges when it comes to planning and selecting suitable systems. This article therefore presents an exoskeleton morphology that illustrates the different types of exoskeletons and enables the classification of suitable systems. Based on this, the results of a market analysis are visualized. Secondly, a method for the systematic and application-oriented selection of exoskeletons in intralogistics is presented. This method maps the application-specific requirements and ergonomic needs to the morphological characteristics in order to recommend suitable exoskeletons. The method is applied and validated using two intralogistics application examples, container unloading and palletizing.

Recruiting and retaining skilled workers is a concern for all employers. This article presents a benchmark procedure that gives manufacturing companies the opportunity to learn from each other regarding this concern in a methodically structured way. The evaluation basis for the benchmark and the requirements for its organization are presented and explained for this purpose. Finally, the application of the benchmark procedure is shown as an example.

The seamless merging of the physical and digital worlds, has led to an unprecedented increase in the speed at which automation can be introduced into production. can be introduced. Smart manufacturing systems will, at a fundamental level, enable the use of artificial intelligence (AI) through machine learning (ML). This involves the alignment of information flows through suitable interfaces to humans is essential. is indispensable. This human-centered approach is referred to as Industry 5.0 (I5.0) or the human-centered approach (HCA) [1, 2]. The prioritization of people can be achieved prioritization can be achieved by placing the process-related interests of people at the at the center of production monitoring and relying on technologies that help employees by developing knowledge and skills, initiate optimizations.

The ongoing digital transformation is increasing the need for lifelong learning. Todays rigid and long-term oriented competence management approaches cannot keep the current neither the future pace of change within the world of work, resulting in a loss of competitiveness and todays significant skill gaps. This article describes existing learning needs within the industry and a new approach that enables application and target-oriented learning for Industry 4.0.

This article presents a human-centered approach to developing an intelligent assembly assistance system, based on ISO 9241-210. Requirements were derived using user-centered methods, and a prototype was developed. A study evaluated the impact of error communication on users, highlighting challenges and potentials. The article demonstrates that the involvement of employees is crucial for the successful development of such systems.

As product and process complexity increases, so does the cognitive ergonomic burden on employees. The development presented here therefore enables the correct execution of the process to be ensured across several stations by means of sensor technology, thus relieving employees.

Integrating mental stress into general risk assessment is crucial for protecting and promoting health and safety of the workforce. This article examines the process of mental stress risk assessment while emphasizing the significance of moderated workshops as a participatory approach to work design, along with associated challenges and solutions for deriving measures to improve working conditions. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of evaluating the effectiveness of measures as an essential component of continuous improvement processes.

Over the last 10 years, production systems have been shaped by Industry 4.0, which drives digitalisation and networking in real time. Industry 5.0, on the other hand, focuses on human-centred technologies that support employees and enhance their skills. Personalisation plays a major role here, especially in manual assembly and testing workstations. The challenge is to adapt workstations individually without compromising standardisation. Eye tracking is used to investigate influencing factors at the workplace and analyse the data using software. This research forms the basis for a concept for the personalisation of manual workstations.