Ludwigsburg – In order to remain competitive, manufacturing companies must not only offer their customer new products in several versions at shorter and shorter intervals. It must also be possible to individualize the products as much as possible and to deliver them rapidly. All at a good price, in high quality and under consideration of sustainability issues.
In this context, the established concepts for production planning and control are insufficient. Above all, they are too inflexible and rigid to be adapted dynamically and at short notice to changing situations and to be able to respond to unplanned events. In order to change this, data must be systematically collected on the shop floor using Internet of Things technologies and made available in real time to production planning and control departments.
Autonomy and self-regulation as factors for success
This is ensured by algorithmic production – an approach developed by the management and IT consulting company MHP. Dr. Stefan Gerber, Associated Partner at MHP: "By algorithmic production architecture, we mean any kind of production control system that makes possible autonomy and self-regulation in the manufacturing process by means of calculating, coordinating and optimizing the scheduling for all areas of the shop floor. Beside machines, systems, tools and vehicles, this also includes processes and orders."
Specifically, what characterizes the approach has been summarized by MHP in the White Paper "Framework of Algorithmic Production Architecture", in which the authors outline the considerable potential of the approach and describe the design for suitable IT architecture – at the same time, the MES is expanded by several components. In this connection, a framework is presented that defines the realization of an algorithmic production architecture by means of three alternative scenarios, linking it with application cases: The central production architecture, the federated production architecture, and the decentralized production architecture. To conclude, as a practical reference the authors present the example of an OEM that has implemented an algorithmic production architecture for the manufacture of electric motors in a new factory.
The White Paper is available on the MHP website and can be downloaded free of charge:
https://www.mhp.com/de/unternehmen/studien/white-paper-algorithmische-produktion
Dr. Stefan Gerber will be glad to answer any questions on the algorithmic production architecture. Simply send your question to: PublicRelations(at)mhp.com
