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Analysis
Project examining how to increase machinery productivity
There still are new machines that are not controlled electronically. But they are getting fewer and fewer. This is because the advantages of machines or tools operating under the mechatronical interplay of mechanics, electronics, and software are undisputed. But one thing is clear : It is just as undisputed that both the functional and organizational complexity during development and implementation is increasing as well. As a member of the research project BESTVOR, Optima contributes its knowledge and expertise to improve organizational processes.
BESTVOR is by no means a purely scientific project. On the contrary, it is a well-known fact that projects developed in an academic environment, virtually under laboratory conditions, rarely find their way into the industry.
Therefore, one objective of BESTVOR is to first analyze the project results from an economic perspective to ensure that companies will be able to actually capitalize on the research. A second condition are methods and models that will not meet internal resistance within the companies – as justified as it may be. Experience shows that employees tend to have a negative attitude towards changes involving an increased workload or a task that is perceived as being over-complex. BESTVOR builds on these experiences and is structured into three phases and parts.
Research for Medium-Sized Enterprises
The first step –where the project currently stands – is the development of a methodology for the professional self-assessment of companies regarding the maturity of their mechatronic organization. This self-assessment will allow companies to determine their requirements in terms of mechatronic organization without the need for outside consultancy, and thus without additional expense. Existing analysis models such as CMMI and SPICE, which partly stem from related fields of application, are to be taken into consideration; however, they will only be used as a basis for the creation of a new model. Especially with these models, acceptance inside the companies so far, has been rather low.
The second step will be the development of a mechatronic organizational concept that, due to its modular structure, can be specifically adapted to the previously determined stage of maturity of a company. Here too, the findings from earlier research projects, such as EQUAL and ProMIS, will be included in the project, but only after they have been evaluated for practicality and modified and refined accordingly. In EQUAL, for instance, the disciplines used in mechatronics, notably mechanics, electronics, and software, have been taken into account with regard to their r structure and separate phases. The joint research project ProMIS, on the other hand, deals with application-oriented project management methods.
The third and last step will be the development of an introduction strategy for the organizational methods developed under BESTVOR. The aim is to write actual introduction manuals and to test and evaluate the methods under realistic conditions. The optimization of the results will then again be carried out under the criteria that are of crucial importance in BESTVOR, that is, efficiency and employee acceptance.
How to Keep Complexity Under Control
One major objective of BESTVOR is to enable companies to improve their mechatronic development procedures easily and independently. Ultimately, these improvements will lead to shorter project durations, a better cost structure as well as a more reliable quality management and better structured innovation process. This also involves as a secondary objective, the development of examples and approaches during the testing phase that can then be used by other companies. Notably change management approaches, revealing changes in company structures. This will allow for the establishment of recommended procedures according to the company’s stage of maturity. Another important result will be training concepts for in-house purposes as well as the academic environment.
As a manufacturer of packaging lines, the Optima Group contributes many years of experience from new mechatronic organization models and methods to the project. At Optima, the idea was essentially to modularize the machine structures and to create functional units. With this expertise, the company is a strategically important partner for the project team. BESTVOR is a cross-industry project. The research institute Fraunhofer IPT and the Technical University Munich are also involved. The overall coordination is in the hands of ITQ GmbH; the organization executing the project is the Research Center Karlsruhe. The project, whose funding-worthiness and future-relevance for the industry have been extensively verified in a selection process conducted by the German Ministry of Education and Research, will be continued until march 2009.
