product development, innovation, research and transfer center Prof. Dr.-Ing. Karl-Heinrich GROTE, Dr.-Ing. Reinhard FIETZ, Dipl.-Wirtsch.-Ing. Dirk WERNEKE, Dipl.-Wirtsch.-Ing. Tilo KAISER The Experimental Factory - A research and transfer center for application orientated research in the fields of product, production and process innovation There is a growing demand for states and companies to improve and reconstruct their economic and organizational structures for efficiency and competition in engineering. To create more workplaces in the Federal Republic of Germany, especially in the country Saxony-Anhalt, a need was identified to provide production plants with new products and new manufacturing technologies. The Experimental Factory was born and is located within reach of the universities in Magdeburg. Magdeburg, once one of the most important location of plant construction and heavy mechanical engineering has, because of recession in mechanical engineering in general and particularly because of the strong dependence on East-European market, lost its importance. Because of reorganization processes after the reunification in Germany extensive changes took place in the region of the industrial area Saxony-Anhalt. Big businesses divided up into many small companies with a size between 50 and 150 employees. Mostly in these businesses research and development resources and the necessary equity capital were not available, in order to realize the necessary innovation impulse. Many of these enterprises are technological orientated supplier without own product responsibility. They have to face the increasing pressure of competition and because of that they must undertake many efforts concerning the optimisation of their products and their process development to keep their position in the competition. 1. STRATEGIC AIM OF THE EXPERIMENTAL FACTORY The Experimental Factory is a research and transfer center for application orientated research in the areas of product, production and process innovation. The strategic aim of the Experimental Factory is to become internationally recognized as a leader in the fields of products and production systems, which will significantly boost industrial research and economic health of medium-sized companies not only locally but also actively support the technological policy of the state. Entrepreneurs, scientists or students who attains a new product idea in the course of their studies find in the
Experimental Factory the technical facility to help out from the product idea through the final steps such as introduction to the market using technical know-how and the competence in business strategy. Under the use of existing and developed research capacities in Magdeburg the conditions for purposeful promotion of product-, procedure- and organization improvement of medium-sized enterprises were created, in order to improve the market chances and to create new jobs in the country. It is necessary to create new capacities and kinds of teamwork between mediumsized industry and research facilities as well as on-campus institutes, but also to attain a faster realization of innovative productivity potentials in competitive production structures on the technical, organizational, social and environment protective field. The most important thing is to open up the access to this innovative potentials and to transfer it in an effective way. Figure 1: Tasks of the Experimental Factory 2. THE THREE FIELDS OF INFLUENCE The basis of the scientific research of the Experimental Factory are the following three fields: A The evaluation of research work of the Berliner Kreis (Berlin Circle) to new tendencies on the field of product development for safeguarding of jobs by the power of innovation.
B A new form of research co-operation in mechanical engineering within the Experimental Factory which is derived from software development an Open- Source development environment for products and process chains. C Existing competencies and technical possibilities of the Experimental Factory as a research and development center for products, production and processes as well as the basis technologies derived from it and individual topics. In the following, these three fields of influence are describe more exactly. A The evaluation of research work of the Berliner Kreis (Berlin Circle) to new tendencies on the field of product development for safeguarding of jobs by the power of innovation. Even in the current change of the industrial society to the global information society, the standard of living of a highly developed industry nation will become defined over the ability to develop innovative industrial products with high innovative unique attributes. Because of that, processes of product development and product creation processes are of central importance. The scientists of the Berliner Kreis (Berlin Circle) developed an approach for Safeguard the future and employment by the power of innovation, the researcher of the Experimental Factory are absolutely able to identify with it. Innovative products, which include advantages and earn top position in global competitions, are the conditions for high standard of living. Prosperity and growth must be in the balance with the preservation of the natural life basis. That s why product innovations are necessary, too. Co-operative product engineering opens up a new perspective of engineer work. Product engineering leads a product idea to a successful market access. Product engineering includes strategic planning of business field, development of products and processes. Co-operative product engineering impresses the close integration of these three fields, by paying attention to the co-operation of product-, process- and behavior innovation. Behavior innovations gives the product innovation process the special impulse, because they make possible the creative thinking and acting, furthermore the precise efficient teamwork without any limits of disciplines, departments and enterprises. [1] It is obvious that the decisive factor of success for a constant prosperous enterprise, based on innovation, includes the combination of product-, process- and behavior innovation (Figure 2).
Product Innovation New product features are relative easily comprehensible. Procedure Innovation New procedures are not so fast comprehensible. Behavior Innovation Changes in the corporate culture and the co-operation culture require years and are with difficulty comprehensible. The combination is the best protection from imitation. Figure 2: Combination of product-, procedure- and behavior innovation as a protection from imitation [1] Beside the traditional factors to generation of unique selling propositions in product- and procedure innovation by the Berliner Kreis (Berlin Circle) especially the behavior innovation, that means the change of corporate- and co-operation culture, is of particular importance. That s why in a principle project in the Experimental Factory one special, at least on the field of product development in mechanical engineering, new form of teamwork and feasibility should become investigated and researched. B A new form of research co-operation in mechanical engineering within the Experimental Factory which is derived from software development an Open-Source development environment for products and process chains. In order to realize the necessary rate of development, beside the technological competencies in the Experimental Factory, even new forms of research- and development co-operation inside of the network are required, too. Starting point for the traditional product development, for instance in mechanical engineering or electrical engineering, are normally patents. These patents have the following purposes: Protection of own ideas from imitation, Acquire and certain of all unique selling propositions as a key to success on the market, Business capital, Handicap of the development of competitors and protection of solution room for planned proprietary developments (patent writings are intentionally very general in its description, in order to include if possible many, not yet
foreseeable developments and to impede an evasion of the patents through the competition), Financial exclusion (development costs and starting investments), Ideas collection to the stimulation (evasion) and exploitation (licensing, expired patents). Between individuals, small businesses and large concerns, are existing differences in interests in the patent protection. For small and medium-sized enterprises and consumers the patent protection has also some restraints: The development of new products must occur always faster, patent procedures slow down the development process, The development becomes ever more complex and is carried by many specialists, Many patents are too expensively, connected with dependences and block therewith solution ways, The assignation of patents lasts a long time, therefore a high number of incomplete patent requests lies on the offices, Development becomes risky for small and medium-sized enterprises, because the firms must survive out of other business fields until the profitable commercialization of a patent. Experiences out of the software development area [2], used on the product development should offer a promising approach for a new form of the collaboration. The idea is an Open-Source development environment for products and process chains on the fields of mechanical engineering and electrical engineering. Base for the Open-Source development environment are an effective knowledge management system on the one side and a system of rules for the collaboration within the researcher groups on the other side. In the following, we shortly illustrate the knowledge management. In order to make knowledge both within a researcher group and/or within distributed research groups or among one another meaningfully useable, the originated knowledge and/or the corresponding experiences must structured stored and made flexibly available in a meaningful and usable way. Here it is to be considered that not all information and knowledge is relevantly for each user. The so-called informationoverflow must be avoided. Basically the question about the technical platform on which the knowledge management system is supposed to be developed was to clarify in the context of the conception. In the decision of the selection concerning the technical platform, following requirements were considered: Platform independence (useable under Linux/Unix, Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh), Access over the internet with each Web Browser of each place of the world,
Use of free available and open standards, programming languages and systems (HTML, PHP, MySQL database, Apache web server), Central data storage in a relational database, Administration of user groups and authorization, Encoded data transmission to the guarantee of high data security. The structure in principle and the interaction of the knowledge management system are represented in the following illustration. client with web browser DB knowledge client with web browser INTERNET encoded data transmission https-protocol Application on basis of PHP DB user rights Linux-server with Apache-web server... client with web browser essential head task: - user groups-/ right administration - management of the knowledge storage - representation of knowledge client with web browser MySQL-Databases Figure 3: System architecture of knowledge management system The aim is the optimization of information and communication between the heterogeneous researcher groups in the Experimental Factory through the implementation of a knowledge management system for an efficient knowledge storage and representation. Through this the transparency and efficiency within a single researcher group and also among different researcher groups is improved. Efficient knowledge management creates a multitude of synergy effects in the research, and is at the same time an outstanding basis for new approaches and innovative ideas through mutual interaction. C Existing competencies and technical possibilities of the Experimental Factory as a research and development center for products, production and processes as well as the basis technologies derived from it and individual topics. Since the first plannings it was beyond dispute that the experimental factory will be a house of applied research for products and processes of mechanical engineering and electrical engineering. Based on the needs of small and medium-sized companies of the region which are active in these industries, the recommendations of the scientists of the Berliner
Kreis (Berlin Circle) and earlier work at research projects as well as its evaluation on an international meeting of experts, the following main technological topics were defined, which are a demarcation and a unique selling proposition in relation to other technology and foundation centers in Saxony-Anhalt: Product development- and product realization processes, Rapid Prototyping, Material and process optimization to reduce product development and manufacturing time, Coating technologies, Micro-production-technologies, Management processes concerning production strategies and technical innovations, Business-learning and planning. Not all these main topics can be handled immediately in same quality and quantity. The Micro-production-technologies within the Experimental Factory are still at the beginning of its development, while in other topics like Rapid Prototyping or Management of technical innovations, already some successes out of the project working are to be indicated. Representative here are mentioned the technological progresses concerning improvements of model features by rapid prototyping (Prof. Lierath) or the works concerning structuring enterprises and the ability to change the structure of these businesses (Prof. Kühnle), latter were subjects in several dissertations (Förster [3], Klopp [4], Rietz [5]). If we pay attention to the technical site, competencies and equipments of the Experimental Factory concentrate on the exemplary representation and realization of certain continous process chains, which are suited to promote and to shorten the product realization processes. The special configuration of the Experimental Factory with equipment which can realize complete continuity of the chain starting with the product/-strategy finding, designing until the manufacturing process and the introduction on the market has begun very successfully. In evaluation of section A, which describes new possibilities for cooperative product engineering and section B, explaining new forms of teamwork, and section C, which informs about available equipment, the innovative basis technologies became identified for the next three years. These basis technologies should complement each other, if possible, and have the following attributes: The technology must be quite new and suitable for a wide field of application, that means it should have a high potential of innovation. The technology must be suitable to accelerate the product development process. It must be available a sufficient measure of competence and experience by involved researchers.
The technology should generate enough investigation need at its own further development and for new innovative projects. The technology must have a great industrial relevance and must hit the requirement of the enterprises. The required technical equipment must be available for the technology. The know-how holders must be ready to disclose their knowledge within the Open-Source development environment. Taking the mentioned criteria into consideration, the following basis technologies should form the center of attention concerning the research activities of the Experimental Factory in the next years: High-speed machining, Virtual reality, Rapid Prototyping, generative manufacturing-processes, new materials, composites, function materials, fast electromagnetic drives for machine tools and robots, electromagnetic compatibility of innovative engineering assemblies. Some basis technologies are suitable to accelerate the product development process and other the manufacturing process. Both forms, together with a strategic business planning, are important to cause a significant reduction of the high-costs which arise from the first phases of a product life cycle. REFERENCES [1] http://www.berlinerkreis.de [2] http://www.opensource.de [3] FÖRSTER, Tobias: Entwicklung einer Methode zur Bewertung der Wandlungsfähigkeit von Produktionsbereichen für die variantenreiche Serienfertigung. Dissertation Otto-von-Guericke- Universität Magdeburg, 1999 [4] KLOPP, Marcus: Gesetzmäßigkeiten konsistenter Ziele zur Führung von Produktionsnetzwerken in der Serienfertigung. Dissertation Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, 1999 [5] RIETZ, Steffen: Methodik zur zieladäquaten Bildung von Fertigungsgrobstrukturen. Dissertation Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, 2000 SUMMARY The Experimental Factory is a research and transfer center for application orientated research in the areas of product, production and process innovation and presents itself as service provider, test laboratory, supplier, demonstration workshop, information center, teaching laboratory and initiator of permanent innovation processes. The idea of an Open-Source development environment for products and process chains offer a promising approach for a new form of the collaboration in product development.