Search

The way of dealing with the strongly increasing complexity of the company itself and its environment has become a key competitive factor. Complexity factors in a variety of different business areas require an advanced Complexity Management. Therefore, knowledge regarding the specifics of the respective complexity, the so-called Complexity Footprint, is decisive to meet requirements and to derive measures by using appropriate instruments. The current Fraunhofer IPA empirical study “advanced Complexity Management – the new management discipline” with more than 190 industrial participants shows, that companies expect a future increase in complexity, but not yet have the tools to deal with it. Furthermore, complexity management is mostly focused on the complexity field product and here in product modularization and variety management. The importance of ideal complexity, of product profitability in response to product complexity in connection with complexity in process and organization is mostly ignored. Within this paper the different activities and instruments of advanced Complexity Management are presented. This includes the approach of complexity patterns in value networks including production and supply chain as well as the summary of several complexity patterns to the Fraunhofer IPA Complexity Footprint. First an up-to-date survey on complexity in value networks is given. Then, the Stuttgart complexity comprehension is introduced. To define the external and internal complexity in socio-technical systems like value networks, the differences are presented. The difference between complicacy and complexity is given, within the complexity dimensions variety, heterogeneity, dynamics and opacity. After this, complexity fields such as goods and services, process and organization as well as their several subfields connectivity and interdependency are established. Examples for complexity in each field are given to highlight the different appearance of complexity. Following, the advanced Complexity Management is introduced and finally the Fraunhofer IPA Complexity Footprint is introduced. Within this Complexity Footprint the complexity patterns in value networks are located and a description is given.

The way to deal with the strongly increasing complexity of the company itself and its environment has become a key competitive factor. The complexity within a production company is characterized by the challenges encountered in daily business processes and can be described by the four dimensions of complexity: variety, heterogeneity, dynamics and non- transparency, as well as their interrelationships. Despite this increasing importance, only few companies have access to adequate tools for complexity management. Most companies have not introduced or implemented yet a complexity management system/approach or they do not know, if the used complexity management methods are efficient and adequate. Therefore, the question rises: How can a company be reviewed and evaluated regarding its complexity management skills? Maturity models can be used to support the analysis and assessment of skills and development-levels of products, processes or organizations by defining different levels of maturity, in order to assess the extent to which an object fulfills defined qualitative requirements. The various levels of maturity within such models can be used to describe the different achievable skill levels. Maturity models not only include methods for the assessment of skill levels, but also provide incentives and measures to increase the degree of maturity. After the introduction of measures to increase the skill level of maturity these models are also suitable to measure and evaluate the progress made. This paper presents an approach for an evaluation model of complexity management systems. First, the basics of the so-called advanced Complexity Management are given, highlighting the difference between complexity and complicacy as well as the comparing external and internal complexity. The fields and dimensions of complexity are presented as well. After that, maturity models fundamentals are presented by showing state-of-the-art maturity model approaches. Furthermore, the overall maturity-based approach for evaluation of complexity management systems, especially the maturity of their functionalities and capabilities regarding the needs and purposes of manufacturing enterprises, is presented by adapting and combining existing methods and models. The maturity-based approach describes different levels of complexity management systems within a production company, also taking into account recommendations and measures to increase the degree of maturity.

Kurzfassung Durch zunehmende Globalisierung ist der Aufbau internationaler Wertschöpfungsnetze eine elementare Voraussetzung zur nachhaltigen Sicherung der Wettbewerbsfähigkeit. Damit steigt die Anzahl der Akteure (Standorte und Wertschöpfungsstufen) innerhalb des Netzwerks, was wiederum zu einer enormen Steigerung dessen Strukturkomplexität führt. Dies erschwert besonders die Entwicklung optimierter Verteilungsstrategien der Wertschöpfung auf die verschiedenen Akteure im Netzwerk. Der vorliegende Beitrag stellt ein benutzerfreundliches Engineering-Werkzeug zur Optimierung der Wertschöpfungsverteilung in Produktionsnetzwerken vor.

Kurzfassung Die Möglichkeit zum Umgang mit einer immer weiter steigenden Komplexität im Unternehmen selbst und dessen Umfeld ist zu einem entscheidenden Wettbewerbsfaktor geworden. Komplexitätsfaktoren in einer Vielzahl unterschiedlicher Unternehmensbereiche erfordern eine systematische Komplexitätsbewirtschaftung. Hierbei ist die Kenntnis der unternehmenseigenen Komplexitätsausprägung, des sogenannten Komplexitäts-Footprints, entscheidend zur anforderungs gerechten Ableitung von Maßnahmen mit Hilfe geeigneter Hilfsmittel.

Kurzfassung Aktuelle Ansätze des Komplexitätsmanagements vernachlässigen häufig den positiven Einfluss von Komplexität auf die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit von Unternehmen. Dieser Beitrag stellt den neuen Ansatz der „Komplexitätsbewirtschaftung“ in soziotechnischen Systemen vor, der davon ausgeht, dass volle Kontrolle der Unternehmenskomplexität nicht mögich ist. Zu diesem Ansatz gehören neben dem Komplexitäts-Footprint auch Strategien, welche die aktive Beeinflussung der internen Komplexität ermöglichen. Mit der idealen Balance zwischen äußerer und innerer Komplexität kann die effektivste Wertschöpfung erzielt werden.

Unternehmen stehen durch die Personalisierung von Produkten und Dienstleistungen und immer schlechter berechenbaren Märkten einer Komplexitätsexplosion gegenüber. Prozesse und Organisationsstrukturen werden immer komplexer, die Planbarkeit und Beherrschbarkeit des Gesamtsystems nimmt ab. Der Beitrag zeigt Lösungen auf, wie der systematische Umgang mit Komplexität gelingen und neue Potenziale eröffnen kann.

Dealing with the strongly increasing complexity of the company itself and its environment has become a key competitive factor. Companies can only face the progressively increasing external complexity in global markets with an appropriate “healthy” internal complexity. It inevitably has to be adapted to market demands. If the internal complexity is too low, the external complexity cannot be mastered sufficiently. The complexity management in the company is therefore not effective. If the internal perspective is too high, the company thus has unnecessary efforts and the complexity management is not efficient. The complexity within socio-technical organizations such as e.g. value networks or industrial companies is characterized by the difficulties and turbulences encountered in daily business and can be described by four dimensions: variety, heterogeneity, dynamics and non-transparency. Most companies have not introduced or implemented a complexity management system in order to deal with these issues yet. Many companies do not know if the used management activities are efficient, effective and adequate. Therefore, companies have to be reviewed and evaluated regarding their complexity management maturity. Maturity models can be used to support the analysis and assessment of skills and development levels of products, processes or organizations. Such competence models are using defined levels of maturity, which can be used to describe the different achievable skill levels. Maturity models for the purposes of evaluation issues have several benefits such as finding vulnerabilities and identifying improvement measures, a better control over costs and time or an earlier and more accurate predictable release and introduction of complexity management activities. This paper presents basics of an advanced Complexity Management as well as an approach for a systematic evaluation of advanced Complexity Management maturity, describing the different levels and taking into account recommendations to increase the degree of maturity.

Kurzfassung Volatile Märkte, Rohstoffknappheit, Katastrophen oder politische Instabilität – Supply Chains sind vielen Risiken ausgesetzt. In Verbindung mit hohen Effizienzanforderungen entsteht ein gefährlicher Mix, der instabile Supply Chains zur Folge hat. Nur durch systematisches Identifizieren und Bewerten von Risiken lassen sich Gegenmaßnahmen einleiten. Eine Studie des Fraunhofer IPA zeigt den aktuellen Reifegrad des Supply Chain Risk Managements in der Industrie und Verbesserungspotenziale auf.