The decision to design a particular factory has far-reaching consequences: it is usually associated with immense project costs and sometimes determines the basic factory structure for the next 20 to 30 years. In addition, numerous restrictions and information from various specialist areas must be taken into account in good time. Therefore the planning and realization of a factory is a highly demanding and interdisciplinary task and follows a systematic and goal-oriented process. It consists of various phases that build on each other – from the idea to the commissioning of production – and is carried out with the aid of methods and tools. The Institute for Advanced Industrial Management has developed its own reference process for factory planning and adapted it over decades to current trends and boundary conditions.
The ever shorter innovation cycles and the associated reduction in product life lead to more development and planning effort, which must be mastered in the shortest possible time. This results in short factory and production plant utilisation times and demands for fast, stable and steep production ramp-ups as well as sustainable production and building structures, including material and information flows and the associated layouts. Against this background, the Factory Planning and Ergonomics Division deals with the continuous, committed and application-oriented further development of existing factory planning methods and tools, but also researches and identifies new and innovative ones. These include, for example, the IFU planning table 4.0, the application of mixed reality concepts via head-mounted displays and in the CAVE as well as the design of concepts for human-robot collaboration. In our Virtual Factory Planning Laboratory (VFP Laboratory), we have brought together numerous areas of application for factory planning and converted them into a comprehensive and integrated Digital Factory 4.0 concept.
Our goal: We want to make a significant contribution to resource-efficient planning and implementation of human-oriented factory systems in which people, organization and technology are coordinated and intelligently networked with each other. Current findings from work science are incorporated into the planning of humane factory systems. This interlocking contributes to our factory planning success and gives us a clear competitive advantage. This enables us to play a key role in the sustainable improvement of manufacturing companies through research and industrial projects.
Areas of research and work:
The Department of Ergonomics is a subdivision of factory planning. It deals with the analysis, organisation and design of work processes – with the aim of designing work systems in line with human needs. Employees, especially in production, are exposed to numerous physical and psychological stresses at the workplace (for example in the form of lifting and carrying heavy loads, repetitive activities and lack of time), which can cause not only short-term but also long-term damage such as musculoskeletal disorders. The design of humane work systems, for example ergonomic workplaces, makes a decisive contribution to maintaining the health of employees and reducing absenteeism due to work-related illnesses. Employees can also stay longer in working life, making the important implicit knowledge of older employees available to the company for longer. Thus, the consideration of ergonomic findings increases the efficiency of companies.
The methods and tools of ergonomics can be implemented at any time in the factory planning process and in the subsequent factory operation. Thus, digital workplace design and safeguarding at the beginning of a planning project enables the sources of physical stress to be identified and eliminated at an early stage. Using software-based simulations and analyses of work systems, ergonomics evaluations can be checked before the workplaces are set up. This not only contributes to the improvement of ergonomics, but also reduces investments. This software is successfully used at the institute within the framework of the Digital Factory in the CAVE. Due to new trends such as industry 4.0, work systems are changing. Here, new findings must be generated that provide information about the effects of this development. The institute offers possibilities to make these effects measurable, for example in the form of Smart Wearables. The developments mentioned lead to novel work systems, which is called work system 4.0 analogous to industry 4.0. Developments such as the collaboration of humans and robots set new standards. At the institute, there are various robots, such as Franka Emika, who was awarded the Future Prize and with whom the use and safeguarding of jobs can be evaluated.
Areas of research and work:
The current research project of the Factory Planning and Ergonomics Division is called „Zukunft Baupartizipation“. This is about how stakeholders can be integrated into the construction and planning processes of factories at an early stage and in a targeted manner.