Mosbach, December 16, 2022 – The role of people in the Smart Factory is becoming all the more important, especially in times of skills shortages and a highly volatile economic situation, which is precisely where Industry 5.0 comes in, according to the EU Commission. Based on Industry 4.0 technology, the focus is now explicitly on the needs of employees. Manufacturing companies require new production planning tools that put a greater focus on employees. MPDV, the leading provider of IT solutions for the Smart Factory, is therefore committed to the FlexPro research project with the aim of developing a planning module for knowledge-based workforce scheduling together with other research partners. FlexPro was launched in the fall of 2021 and is expected to run for a total of three years.
This research and development project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The program is called "Future of Value Creation - Research on Production, Services and Work" and supervised by the Projektträger Karlsruhe (Project Management Agency Karlsruhe), PTKA for short. The responsibility for the content of this publication lies with the author.
Research means cooperation
MPDV cooperates with the following research partners to cover as broad a field as possible:
- Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation
- Chair of Production Systems, Ruhr University Bochum (LPS)
- RUB/IGM Joint Research Center, Ruhr University Bochum
Two manufacturing companies are also participating in the research project with the aim of evaluating the developed tools under real-life conditions at an early stage:
- VACOM Vakuum Komponenten & Messtechnik GmbH (components & metrology)
- Ansmann AG (manufacturer of battery, charging and drive technology as well as lighting technology)
Nathalie Kletti, Managing Director of MPDV explains: "As a family business, people are particularly close to our hearts. That's why we cooperate with like-minded companies and get involved in research projects with an appropriate focus."
1st milestone is completed
First findings and results are available after the first year, which include twelve workplace improvements designed to reduce strain on employees For this purpose, numerous interviews were conducted with employees of the two manufacturing companies involved.
The next step is to digitalize the gained knowledge so that it can be used by a software-based planning solution.
MPDV provides product and application know-how
As a leading software provider, MPDV brings domain knowledge and established products to the research project. The latter are to be gradually developed further based on the research results. Martin Bißdorf, Executive Product Manager, remarks:"Innovation needs exchange and that's exactly what we achieve with research projects like FlexPro."
The foundation and common data hub for the planning module is the Manufacturing Integration Platform (MIP), which provides the semantic data model for all objects in the manufacturing environment. The Advanced Planning and Scheduling System (APS) FEDRA adds flexible planning functions and will be expanded to incorporate the findings from the research project.