CRC 768 - T7: A Guidline for Change Management in Production

In the transdisciplinary Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 768 "Cycle Management in Innovation Processes", the overriding goal is handling and design of innovation processes, taking into account the cyclical influencing factors involved, in order to enable companies to successfully survive in the market. Within the framework of the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 768 in recent years, various aspects of the design of cycles and their management in development and production have been analyzed and a systematic manufacturing change management process (MCM) for the more efficient and effective design of change cycles in production has been developed. The transfer project T7 now aims at transferring the developed scientific methods and models into practice and applying them prototypically to research partners. The knowledge to be gained helps the researchers to validate their approaches and to indicate the need for adaptation.

Motivation

As a result of globalization, manufacturing companies in high-wage countries are under permanent cost pressure, accompanied by constantly growing customer demands for up-to-date technologies and concepts. In order to maintain their competitiveness, companies are required to use continuously adaptable, changeable production systems. The initial situation of the research partner is an automobile manufacturer in which numerous different vehicle derivatives are produced. The sharp increase in the number of derivatives over the recent years, together with shortening of vehicle life cycles, is leading to constantly frequent changes in the production system.

Objective

The goal of the transfer project T7 is the development of a guideline for cycle-oriented identification, analysis, planning and implementation of changes in production systems. The developed processes, methods and models of CRC 768 will be tested in practice and, in particular, interdisciplinary cooperation will be integrated.

Approach

WP1 initially includes the analysis and visualization of the product development and production-side implemented processes for the design and documentation of changes at the industrial partner. In order to be able to provide a later proof of profitability and efficiency (cf. WP4), key performance indicators (e.g. number of changes, processing time of changes) for changes at the industrial partner are determined and documented at the beginning of the transfer project. The recorded processes and KPIs are iteratively analyzed, evaluated and compared with the reference process MCM from the CRC 768 in parallel in WP2. This results in identification of potentials for adapting the approach to the constraints of the company (WP3). In WP4, the concept is implemented, tested and then a KPI-based proof of profitability and benefit is provided (WP5). Finally, in WP6, the insights gained throughout the project are summarized in the form of a guideline for cycle-oriented change management in production and, in particular, fed back into sub-projects B1, B4, B5 and A8 of the Collaborative Research Centre.

Acknowledgement

The transfer project T7 of the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 768 "Cycle Management of Innovation Processes" is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). We would like to thank the DFG for its outstanding support.

Further information can be found at www.sfb768.de.