Hypotheses for a Theory of Production in the Context of Industrie 4.0

Abstract

Significant increase in productivity of production systems has been an effect of all past industrial revolutions. In contrast to those industrial revolutions, which were driven by the production industry itself, Industrie 4.0 is pushed forward by an enormous change within the current society due to the invention and frequent usage of social networks in combination with smart devices. This new social behaviour and interaction now makes its presence felt in the industrial sector as companies use the interconnectivity in order to connect production systems and enhance collaboration. As employees bring their own smart devices to work the interconnectivity is brought into the companies as well and Industrie 4.0 is pushed into the companies rather than initiated by the companies themselves. On top of productivity improvement within production the fourth industrial revolution opens up new potentials in indirect departments such as engineering. This focus differentiates Industrie 4.0 from the first three industrial revolutions, which mainly focused on productivity increase by optimising the production process. Within the Cluster of Excellence “Integrative Production Technology for High-Wage Countries” of the RWTH Aachen University four mechanisms were developed which describe Industrie 4.0. The mechanisms “revolutionary product lifecycles”, “virtual engineering of complete value chains”, “better performing than engineered” and “revolutionary short value chains” can be achieved within an Industrie 4.0-environment. This environment is based on the four enablers “IT-Globalisation”, “single source of truth”, “automation” and “cooperation” and enhances collaboration productivity. Therefore the present paper examines and introduces hypotheses for a production theory in the context of Industrie 4.0. For each mechanism two hypotheses are presented which explain how the respective target state can be achieved. The transmission of these mechanisms into producing companies leads to an Industrie 4.0 capable environment strengthening competitiveness due to increased collaboration productivity within the direct and especially indirect departments. The specified hypotheses were developed within the framework of the Cluster of Excellence “Integrative Production Technology for High-Wage Countries” of the RWTH Aachen University.