Modularization

Industry 4.0 requires new teaching content due to its innovation potential. Skills profiles currently in demand often aren't reflected in vocational and tertiary education. Additionally, conventional further education and training often costs considerably money and time. Tailor-made learning opportunities and teaching targeted problem-solving skills in a modular learning factory are a more effective approach.

The advancing technological change, the globalization of markets as well as increasing customer requirements have led to a significant increase in complexity in manufacturing companies and their supply chains. Companies and entire value chains are countering this development with product modularization strategies. In this context, however, the investigation of the influences of product modularization on the supply chain receives little attention. This can lead to unused potentials and additional risks, such as the loss of core competencies. Therefore, this article deals with necessary processes and success factors that result from a joint consideration of product modularization along the supply chain. On the basis of a systematic analysis of scientific literature and guideline-supported expert interviews, a process model with different phases and steps was developed and currently necessary success factors were identified.

Digitization in engineering promises automated workflows, higher speed and lower costs in the development of automation solutions. The prerequisite for this is not only modularization based on a structured description language, but also uniform, interdependent modeling that ensures automated data exchange across system boundaries. In order to achieve a broad application, the underlying ontology should be based on existing norms and standards and be available in open source applications. However, the collaborative and consistent development of such an ontology requires a structured, methodical procedure and an associated modelling map that serves as an orientation for standardized, work-sharing modelling. A possible approach for the required procedure model and the related map will be presented in this article and validated using AutomationML. The presented approach should point out a possible direction and stimulate further process-controlled modelling efforts of ontologies.