Co-Authors: Thomas Bergs (WZL), Andreas Feuerhack (senseering), Christian Gülpen (Time), Sabine Janzen (DFKI), Wolfgang Maass (DFKI), Patrick Mattfeld (WZL), Philipp Niemietz (WZL), Frank Piller (Time) — alphabetical order

What is the purpose of this?

The past has shown that a lack of resilience management can lead to high costs in the production industry. Supply bottlenecks or disputes with suppliers can lead to costs of up to EUR 100 million per week [1] or EUR 410 million per bottleneck [2]. Costs that ultimately have to be covered by customers or employees. A resilience management has the task to point out alternatives in time. However, there is no such resilience management for production industry.

The Vision

The vision of the #SPAICER research project is to develop a framework model for AI-based resilience management for production companies in production networks. On the basis of hybrid AI platforms and accompanying economic and legal usage concepts, the basis for a Smart Resilience Service ecosystem for different stakeholders in production networks will be created.

Timeline and Background

In Q1/2019 the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie, BMWi) launched an Innovation Competition called Artificial intelligence (AI) as a driver for economically relevant ecosystems. Within that AI competition, DFKI x RWTH (TIME and WZL) submitted their concept idea

#SPAICER: Scalable adaptive production systems through AI-based resilience optimization

and won together with 34 other applicants. We are now asked to work out the concept in the next 4 months in such a way that we can then realize the concept in a three-year implementation phase. #SPAICER will be evaluated by an independent jury in August 2019. If successful again, then #SPAICER2 will start January 1st, 2020.

Resilience in a nutshell

Resilience describes the ability to withstands/resist life changing situations without lasting disruption. While in the past resilience was mainly used in psychology, our approach is to transfer the concept of resistance to technical processes. Technical processes are also subjected to fluctuations and uncertainties that affect process quality. Our key question is: How much disturbances can a production engineering system tolerate before lasting effects occur? And this question will be answered by #SPAICER.

The #SPAICER concept idea

Germany is a country of production. After services, manufacturing output accounts for by far the second highest share of gross value added, at just under 26 %. Compared to the 2014 reporting period, the gross value added of the relevant manufacturing industry increased from 593.6 to 674.3 billion euros in the 2017 reporting period. Compared to the previous year, there was an increase of 3 percent [3]. This makes the manufacturing industry one of the core guarantors of growth and prosperity in Germany. In the USA, USD 12 trillion in intermediate products were purchased by companies in 2007 [4].

Reliability and cost efficiency are key differentiators, especially in global value networks with multiple relationships and dependencies. Shorter technology and product life-cycles and rapidly changing customer requirements leave less and less time to build quality-optimized logistics and production chains. Convertible production in the sense of industry 4.0 leads to the necessity of faster changeover and learning processes. This increases the susceptibility to malfunctions and errors. For example, the loss of production caused by the earthquake in Fukushima led to a 1.2 % reduction in Japan’s gross national product [5].

SPAICER’s promise of benefits for production companies

This is exactly where the #SPAICER research project comes in, so that production companies can specifically apply artificial intelligence (AI) methods in heterogeneous production contexts in order to optimize resilience to internal and external disturbances and changes in the context of an industry 4.0 production network with the aim of being able to act flexibly and adaptively in global competition.