Intuitive knowledge management with semantic language technology

Scientists at the TU Darmstadt are currently developing a software based on semantic language technology in the research project "Wikulu - self-organizing wikis", which should help solve the problem of confusing and redundant knowledge collections, for example in companies.

For a long time there have been wiki software in companies, with which important information should be made easily accessible to other employees internally. Wikis have many advantages for companies: You can add information to a wiki quickly and from almost anywhere. Others can access them and update and extend them if necessary.

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The Chair of Business Administration, in particular Business Informatics III (Prof. Dr. Michael Amberg) of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, in collaboration with the consulting firm Detecon, has investigated the support of business goals by IT in companies in a comprehensive study. It showed that there is still a considerable potential for improvement in the alignment of IT with the requirements of companies.

In many companies today, IT enables market and growth potential. She is increasingly required to contribute directly to the business success of the company. To meet these requirements, while at the same time gaining strategic value for the company, requires a comprehensive alignment of the use of IT with the business activities of the company. This orientation is typically referred to as business IT alignment.

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The current economic crisis affects the manufacturing industry particularly strongly. Drastic drops in orders mean that the capacities reserved can no longer be fully utilized. But there is also a chance in every crisis. The low capacity utilization offers the possibility to design processes and processes in the production area holistically and sustainably. In order to achieve a lean production, a variety of optimization methods has become established.

As part of the study "Increasing added value", the Fraunhofer IAO is investigating the dissemination of such process optimization methods in manufacturing companies. The study focuses on the value stream method. The value stream method looks at the entire value chain and thus enables a transparent analysis of material and information flows in order to identify potential for improvement and to identify weak points. All the activities necessary to bring a product from the input material through the production into the hands of the customer are included in the investigation, waste is reduced and thus the added value is increased.

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Latest results of WMS database now available online

Since mid-August 2009, the latest results of the international WMS database are available on the Internet. The WMS database, which was initiated by the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML in Dortmund and the Dutch IPL Consultants bv, provides companies with practical support in selecting and introducing a suitable warehouse management system.

The results of the international database WMS are based on the extended questionnaire version 9 of the database, which the participating WMS providers filled out in the first half of the year. In order to ensure the high quality of the data, the answers of the providers are not simply taken over but checked by the expert team warehouse logistics. That is, the provider must substantiate the information provided by demonstrating the relevant functions, with the same standards being applied to each provider.

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The publication "PERLE: developing performance models - corporate values ​​are alive!" Using practical examples and tried-and-tested tools, it shows how company performance models are developed, designed and successfully implemented.

In complex economic life, in times of rapidly changing, turbulent environmental conditions and often unpredictable events, there is an increasing awareness of companies in relation to corporate mission and culture.

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About 70 Percentage of companies in the freight forwarding and logistics industry operate according to their own risk management or plan to introduce it. However, they do not have a common understanding of what steps and measures should include risk management. Only individual companies implement risk management that corresponds to the current state of science. This is the result of a joint study by the University of Applied Sciences Fulda and the Heilbronn University on behalf of the Forwarding and Logistics Association Hesse / Rhineland-Palatinate. 81 companies in the logistics industry from Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg were surveyed.

"Many companies run the risk of neither recognizing risks nor managing them in a structured way", comments Prof. Dr. med. Michael Huth, who teaches logistics at the Department of Economics of the University of Applied Sciences Fulda, the study results. Risk management is the systematic identification and assessment of possible disruptions and dangers as well as the development of appropriate countermeasures and usually takes place in several successive phases. But they are operated in the companies apparently different intensity. 85 percent of companies analyze, monitor and evaluate potential dangers more or less regularly. But only 12 percent work continuously on the development of their risk strategy. "Risks in the operational area are recognized, but only a few companies are engaged in a strategically-based analysis of long-term risks, for example in the area of ​​human resources," says Huth. In addition, they resort to methods that are particularly easy to implement: checklists, brainstorming, employee surveys. However, these only made it possible to think about risks, but not to assess them in terms of possible damage or the likelihood of their occurrence.

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For the first time, the Institute for Production Systems and Logistics opens its Production Training to individuals who themselves want to experience the methods of "Toyota production".

Can delivery reliability be increased from a disastrous two percent to almost 95 percent within one and a half days? Yes - at least in the simulation game of the IFA Production Training. In this game after all, these figures are not extremes, but average values. But why is it even played in the Production Technology Center, at the Institute of Factory Equipment and Logistics (IFA)?

"For many larger companies, the methods of lean production - ie lean production or even" production according to the Toyota principle "- are in high demand," explains Thomas Frädrich, training manager and engineer at the IFA, "but a change is a failure If employees from production and assembly do not join in. For these companies we have developed the Production Training, in which ideally twelve employees experience themselves in four rounds of play, such as work and processes in a small, realistic assembly line with warehouse, accounting and everything that goes with it through lean production change - and of course improve. "

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Software system statistics.BRAIN from Bizerba ensures optimization of the production process

The technology manufacturer Bizerba has created a computer-aided program _statistics.BRAIN, which ensures efficient filling quantity control and statistical process control. It not only performs a perfect weight and attribute check, but also provides insight into the production process through detailed logging.

"Thanks to the individual configuration options, _statistics.BRAIN can be perfectly tailored to customer-specific requirements," explains Dieter Conzelmann, Director of Industry Solutions Market at Bizerba. "The system is constantly evolving. That's why it can be easily adapted and updated with legal changes or industry-internal changes. "

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The price increases for energy force us to use energy more and more efficiently. For production this means that all sources and sinks in the production and material flows must be recorded holistically and the energy data systematically evaluated. For this purpose, the Fraunhofer IPA has developed an analysis system for optimizing energy use in production.

Total Energy Efficiency Management (TEEM) involves integrating and extending various methods of planning and controlling factory and production systems and their energy efficiency improvement processes. For this purpose, the Fraunhofer IPA has developed various concepts with which the actual situation in the company can be surveyed and assessed, potential for improvement can be identified and implementation measures can be derived. Working aids support the implementation of the DIN EN 16001 and the implementation of the methodology of the energy value stream. On the basis of the determination of the process-specific energy value stream, for example, energy requirements are determined, evaluated by means of key figures and then the identified savings potentials are exhausted, taking into account given design guidelines.

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Inventory Losses of 3,9 Billions in Retail - Smart cash register systems can make life easy for thieves

According to surveys by the Cologne EHI Retail Institute, inventory differences in retail add up to 3,9 billion euros annually. The state escapes around 400 million euros in VAT every year. Shoplifters are responsible for over half of the cases, and employees around a quarter. The rest is accounted for by suppliers, service staff and organizational errors. The most frequently stolen items in the grocery retail sector still include small, expensive items such as razor blades, batteries, tobacco products, condoms, spirits and cosmetics. In the clothing trade, fashionable goods, branded goods and lingerie are preferred.

In order to reduce the so-called inventory losses, the trade invests on average more than 0,3 percent of sales, which is around 1,1 billion euros. Total expenditures for inventory differences and their avoidance amount to around 5 billions of euros a year, which retailers, like all costs, have to include in their sales prices.

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Bankruptcy trustees expect massive increase in corporate bankruptcies with new record levels no later than 2010. The experts demand far-reaching reforms to save more companies.

The insolvency administrators in Germany expect a new bankruptcy record in 2010 at the latest. The main reason is the effects of the financial and economic crisis on companies in Germany. That is the result of a current survey by Euler Hermes Kreditversicherungs-AG together with the Center for Insolvency and Reorganization at the University of Mannheim (ZIS) about the causes of insolvencies in the current economic crisis. Above all, it is the dropping orders that cause problems for the company as well as domino effects caused by the bankruptcy of clients or suppliers. Companies that have private equity owners are also particularly at risk. Restrictive lending by banks also plays an important role. In the study that has now been presented, well-known insolvency administrators in Germany were surveyed in March and April 2009, who are currently processing a total of around 21.000 cases of corporate insolvency. The insolvency administrators estimate that 34 percent of bankruptcy filings were triggered by the global recession. According to 94 percent of insolvency administrators, the special thing about the current crisis and the reason for the expected massive increase is the drop in orders. The insolvency administrators report from their practice that the smaller medium-sized companies affected by this experienced an average decline of over 50 percent. Next came the cancellation or postponement of orders with 73 percent of responses and subsequent insolvencies with 68 percent. This is followed by the vulnerability of private equity financed companies to crises (64 percent) and the restrictive lending of banks with 62 percent. 2003 high is exceeded

Almost two-thirds of the respondents believe that the previous highest level of 39.000 company failures from the year 2003 is exceeded. The peak of the coming bankruptcy wave, half expects 2009, the other half next year. "The study shows the impact of the financial crisis on companies and how small and medium-sized companies are struggling." Gerd-Uwe Baden, CEO of Euler Hermes Kreditversicherungs-AG.

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