Production System Dynamics
For the efficient design, planning and control of production systems, a profound understanding of the dynamics inherent in the system is required. The causes of these dynamics are both system-internal and external customer-induced factors. The specialist group Production System Dynamics concentrates on the analysis and optimisation of production systems with a focus on production planning and control. The basis of these approaches is the Dynamic Value Stream Analysis tool, which represents a virtual twin of the production system under consideration.
Meeting current Challenges
Dynamics as a growing challenge of today's production: In view of globalised markets and growing competitive pressure, companies are faced with the challenge of increasing their productivity and reducing costs. At the same time, a high degree of flexibility is required to fulfil individual customer wishes. These requirements result in increasing internal production variability, the management of which is a core focus of the Production System Dynamics department.
Existing methods and principles of Lean Production or Lean Six Sigma only focus on eliminating all the influences of variability that are prevalent in the production system. Contrary to this approach, the work of the Production System Dynamics group is based on a unique differentiation of different types of variability, based on the factor of value creation. Based on this philosophy, the aim is to eliminate non-value-adding variability influences as far as possible, while controlling value-adding variability influences. The development of innovative methods and approaches that enable the efficient elimination or control of prevailing variability influences in terms of analysis and optimisation is the focus of the Production System Dynamics Division.
Research- and Competence Focuses
High productivity and short throughput and delivery times in combination with high service levels require a holistic consideration of the diverse dynamic influences in today's production systems. The Production System Dynamics department therefore focuses on the development of new and the optimisation of existing production management approaches that take these dynamics into account.
The topics addressed in the Production System Dynamics department include, among others
- Lean Production
- Production planning and control
- Agile process planning
The development of progressive digitalisation of industrial production within the framework of Industry 4.0 is leading to increasing amounts of data available to manufacturing companies. The focus of the specialist group is therefore on the development of data-driven, analytical approaches and procedures that use the historical knowledge bundled in the data volumes to optimally design, plan and control production systems. These include
- Analysis methods of classical statistics, including statistical design of experiments (DoE), graphical-explorative data analysis, descriptive statistics, etc.
- Artificial intelligence, especially machine learning (supervised and unsupervised learning)
- Mathematical optimisation methods (genetic and evolutionary algorithms)
Together, this results in innovative research and application fields that address the needs of industry using conventional and innovative methods, including
- Dynamic Bottleneck Prediction - predictive identification of dynamic bottlenecks to prevent plant and machine downtime
- Simulation-based Buffer Design - Buffer design in production systems to optimise the delivery performance of dynamic production systems
- Predictive Production Scheduling - predictive simulation-based production programmes by applying reinforcement learning approaches
Services
The Production System Dynamics department supports companies in the introduction and implementation of innovative solutions for industrial quality management. The range of services includes analysis and consulting projects, various training and further education courses and the development of individual solutions. You can find more information under the point Range of Services: