Archiv der Kategorie: Processes

Process Know-how: How to survive in the competition with China

Veröffentlicht am von
1

[Deutsche Fassung]

It is common ground that China developed dramatically over the last years. From 2000 to 2007 the GDP increased by 100%. Taking only the export, it grew in 2009 from US $ 1,202 billion to US $ 1,577 billion in 2010. This means an increase by 31%. And looking at the ranking lists regarding the top 10 exporting nations, China improved by 9 rankings between 1997 and 2009 to the top position. And even if the dynamic is currently calming down, it is still growing. Weiterlesen →

Who knows what the customer really wants?

Veröffentlicht am von
2

[Deutsche Fassung]

In principal, everybody knows how it works: On the one side the customer knows exactly what he wants, and on the other side the supplier knows how to fulfill these needs. In theory, this is correct. But looking into our global world, it more often works like in the following picture:

Project management: the plain truth

Project management: the plain truth

Looking at the plant- and mechanical engineering industry, maybe you might smile about it, and feel it could be a little bit extreme. But if you look within your business field, you might be reminded of one or the other case. After the meeting with the customer the salesman knows exactly what the customer wants. Even the product manager or the member of the R&D team understands what the customer wants. Please, look again at the first three pictures above. How come that the installation differs from the customers’ needs? Weiterlesen →

No standard solutions, please – modularization for small lot sizes

Veröffentlicht am von
1

[Deutsche Fassung]

Building bricks – large and small ones, narrow and broad ones, tall and flat ones. We’ve all been familiar with them since our childhood days. And the things we were able to build with them. Houses, garages, castles, towers and cars – the bricks, always the same, were used with different approaches. In manufacturing engineering, this kind of building block concept is called modularization. The idea is to split the customers’ demand in such “bricks” that the replication rate increases, a higher number of possible varieties comes into play (adaptability) and, at the same time, the costs per “brick” and the related research and development costs decrease. Weiterlesen →

Battle of complexity: the Cato principle

Veröffentlicht am von
1

[Deutsche Fassung]

Whoever searches examples of modularization or standardization, will find one in the automotive industry or other mass production businesses. That leads to the impression that modularization is only possible combined with high volumes and would not be possible for a low volume or even a “lot size 1”. Is that really the truth? Weiterlesen →