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Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL) |
The Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL) was founded in 1906 and is one of Europe’s largest and most productive university institutes of its kind. The institute carries out both basic and applied research projects directly addressing the needs of industry, finding practical solutions for a modern and efficient production. The goal of covering the whole field of production engineering in a single institute has lead to a wide spectrum of activities focused on product development and design, quality management, machine tools and automation, process planning, production and assembly. Close interdisciplinary co-operation and a balanced mix of fundamental research characterise research at WZL and application related development of future solutions. The most part of research work is realised in joint projects with industry ensuring a quick proliferation of attained results into practice. Additionally, a close co-operation with internationally distributed Universities allows the inter-organisational knowledge transfer and participation in globally relevant projects. WZL has gained profound experience and done comprehensive research on the following fields:
- Product structuring
- Management of product development and integrated CAD-CAM-chain
- Knowledge Management
- Innovation Management
- Organisational procedures and structures in construction (e.g. simultaneous engineering) and manufacturing (e.g. supply chain management)
- Project and process management
- Clustering of Small and Medium Enterprises and Global Network Management (GVE) within the COSME and COVE initiatives
- Integrated product- and process-planning, additionally enterprise-models (= Business Models) (SFB 361)
- Complexity management in producing enterprises
- Network and collaboration management for engineering projects (e-Hubs)
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Institute for Technology Management (ITEM) |
ITEM-HSG is a non-profit research institute at the University of St. Gallen, divided in the following four units, whereof the Unit TECTEM is involved in the project:
- Unit for Operations Management, headed by Prof. Dr. Elgar Fleisch
- Unit for Quality Management & Business Excellence headed by Prof. Dr. Fritz Fahrni
- Unit for Innovation Management, headed by Prof. Dr. Oliver Gassmann
- Unit TECTEM: headed by Dr. Thomas Friedli
The Research Part of the TECTEM Unit strongly builds on co-operative research with industry and with research partners in science and technology. To the end of developing concepts with practical relevance it develops its methodological competence in action research.
The Institute‘s experience stems from the participation of its researchers in a number of national and international R&D projects. |
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Global Research & Financing |
| Global Research & Financing was formed to enable and facilitate innovative and advanced technologies to materialise, whether as research and scientific significant breakthrough and work - and also as products ready for the market. Global Research & Financing is a unique organisation and the only one of its kind in Israel. It is a newly form organisation that evolved from the co-operation of Precise, whose expertise includes economic & financial project management, performance management and sensitivity analysis; ABC Consulting, which is a business and trade consulting organisation specialising also in Asia; and the Institute for Social & Behavioural Sciences. As a research centre, we furnish our associated companies, organisations, institutions and researchers, with highly professional and unique research umbrella to work under and achieve their R&D goals. At any given time, we handle directly and indirectly various research projects in different fields. This creates a unique opportunity to marry assorted expertise - those of our associated companies and organisations and our own. This can allow unparalleled and unmatched intellectual, scientific and business collaboration between different disciplines and researches that otherwise would have never been brought together. |
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Schiesser Group |
| Schiesser AG designs, manufactures and sells underwear for women, men and children through independent retail stores with a main focus on the European market. In 2002, the Fashion AG generated a revenue of about €250 million. At the end of 2002 the Fashion AG employed around 4000 people in Europe, most of them in production facilties in Eastern Europe and about 800 of them at the headquarters in Radolfzell, Germany. Currently, Schiesser sources about 50% of its finished products from their own production facilities in Eastern Europe and another 50% from external suppliers from mainly Asia. The two production facilities in the Czech Republic and the Slovakian Republic have nearby workshops that perform the major parts of the mostly labour-intensive production activities. These workshops are partly owned by Schiesser and partly owned by independant SME (some of them are in Bulgaria and Croatia); they are executing the cutting, making, trimming, ironing and controling of the products. |
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Computer and Automation Research Institute (MTA SZTAKI) |
The Computer and Automation Research Institute, Hungarrian Academy of Sciences (SZTAKI) was founded in the early sixties as a research and development institution of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The Institute gained world-wide reputation in computer graphics, computer-aided design and manufacturing, process control, robotics, operations research, numerical methods, advanced information systems and networking. One of the main missions of the Institute is to realise technology transfer to the Hungarian industry and service sectors including SMEs. The Institute’s mission includes the transfer of up-to-date results and research technology to university students. The Institute is very active in graduate and post-graduate education co-operating with most of the universities in Hungary and operating common chairs, Ph.D. programmes with them. Prof. László Monostori Deputy Director Research of SZTAKI also acts as the head of the University Department of Production Informatics, Management and Control (TU Budapest). About 30 Ph.D. students and 30-40 graduate students participate in the work of the Institute. ERCIM (European Research Consortium of Informatics and Mathematics) granted full membership to SZTAKI in 1994. SZTAKI is also member of the World-Wide-Web Consortium. SZTAKI participates or recently participated in >30 5th Framework projects of the EU supported by the EU. Our senior researchers are also very active in the management and in the working committees of various international scientific organisations (e.g. CIRP, IEEE, IFAC, IFIP). Many researchers are members of editorial boards of leading international scientific periodicals.
The international reputation of the Institute is reflected in its prestigious title of "Centre of Excellence" in Information technology, computer science and control given by the EU in 2000. The main goal of the Research Laboratory of Engineering and Management Intelligence (EMI), and the Research Laboratory on Intelligent Manufacturing and Business Processes (IMBP) is to research and elaborate techniques applicable for handling complex production and business systems working in an uncertain, changing environment, with special emphasis on artificial intelligence and machine learning approaches. |
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Virtuelle Fabrik AG |
| Currently, there exist three Virtual Factories in the German-speaking part of Europe and they consist of 72 companies which are working on 255 individual projects. Particularly for capital-intensive products, the linkage of market opportunities and enterprise capabilites is a great challenge. The existing internal flexibility does very often not suffice to address markets for customized investment-goods. When in the past a certain market need was closely linked with a major investment, this market need was usually not addressed by SMEs. A solution for this problem offers the Virtual Factory. It is based on an interdisciplinary network of selected companies, which combine ressources for individual projects. The Vitual Fctory is the joint strength of the partner enterprises for the customer's product and its corresponding solutions. The potentials of the Virtual Factory help to overcome the capacity or competence bottlenecks of the individual SME and allows to plan and to realize market opportunities. The individual SME of the Virtual Factory obtains reliability through well-known network partners. However, a challenge of the Virtual Factory is the manageability of projects utilizing partners from more than one Virtual Factory. In these circumstances, the understanding of coordination possibilities is central and requires additional research. |
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