Dr. Uwe Günther 
We see that companies with job shop production are also increasingly moving to line production. Is job shop production outdated or is this just the influence from the automotive sector and the lean production philosophy pronounced there? Can companies without line production still exist in the market at all? I would like to give answers … Read more
How does teamwork in shopfloor layout planning work? In most companies, shopfloor layouts are created on the computer. This means that one member of the team operates the computer, and the others often only get to work when there are enough variants to choose from. Active interaction with the planning model is thus limited to … Read more
The term ‘digital twin’ is more often and often to be found in the ocean of terms and anglicisms in the field of planning and operation of factories. But which meaning has this term and which effects has this topic on your own enterprise? And what does it have to do with the benefits of … Read more
One concept that always comes up in factory or production planning is lead time. Especially in the context of operating cost calculations and process optimization along the value chain, lead times play a decisive role. But what exactly do we mean by lead time, and how significant is it really in the planning process? Definitions … Read more
In our last article we presented the basic procedure for a utility value analysis to evaluate layout variants. Here we will now look at the practical implementation of this method with the help of a Excel template. To apply and calculate the utility value analysis, you either create your own spreadsheet or download an existing … Read more
The process of layout planning often produces several variants. This is mainly due to the fact that several, sometimes opposite target criteria must be taken into account. Another aggravating fact is that the decision-makers assume different perspectives when evaluating the layout variants which, in turn, aggravate an objective evaluation. This is often the beginning of … Read more
Someone who is planning a journey will probably turn to a route planner to determine the shortest and fastest route. This is generally done with the intention of saving time, and thus costs. The start and end points of a journey are essentially fixed, and there is thus little scope for variability in this respect. … Read more