Corporate Technology - Rolf Hellinger

Production Processes
The Production Processes (PP) team is a valuable partner for
planners in Siemens’ Business Sectors. Using advanced simulation
systems, the team’s approximately 150 experts design and optimize
entire process chains and their associated factories, help to reduce
technical and financial risks, and fine tune remote maintenance
tools with a view to minimizing costs.
Perfecting Factories
before they Exist
When it comes to planning factories, nothing
is more important than getting production
lines up and running in the shortest possible
time. But avoiding errors before ground is broken
is also essential. That includes ensuring that
everything from workstations to production lines
is designed as ergonomically as possible, and
that all processes are set up in a manner that ensures
optimized throughput. Although this may
sound like a tall order, it’s exactly what the Production
Processes (PP) Division specializes in. PP
is the place where factories are born as 3D simulations.
Here, virtual components are carried
down simulated assembly lines in near real time,
with animated human figures or robots working
on them along the way. Such simulations make it
possible to discover errors — such as a robot arm
that’s too large to be used at a particular workstation
— before they can cause real-world problems.
Siemens experts have been working with digital
factories for around twenty years. The true
art of their virtual planning activities involves being
able to determine which parts of a simulation
actually require detailed data. For example, a material
flow simulation can do without it; but a
complex assembly simulation cannot. The Production
Processes Division uses objects from a
digital library to the greatest extent possible. The
particular talent of the Division’s specialists lies in
their ability to come up with the best solution for
each application, in some cases utilizing their
own user interfaces. Experts at PP also write their
own simulation programs if no solution for a particular
problem is available.
14 Corporate Technology
It was such a situation, in fact, that led the Division
to design — in cooperation with the Technical
University of Munich — the PlantCalc planning
tool that compares production locations in
order to analyze their profitability. Use of this
technique at a Siemens manufacturing location
in northern Germany made it possible to show
the facility’s managers that under certain conditions
expansion of production in Germany would
make more economic sense than transferring
production to Eastern Europe. Here it was discovered
that the optimization possibilities offered by
the facility made it the best option, despite the
higher wages paid in Germany.
Optimized planning doesn’t guarantee perfect
implementation, however, as steps need to
be taken to ensure harmonized interaction between
hardware and software, between mechanical,
electronic, and information technology,
and between developers, procurement specialists,
and plant construction firms. In other words,
the complete solution, which often consists of
technologies from different Siemens divisions
and external suppliers, must be brought together,
installed, and put into operation in accordance
with a tight schedule. The financial risk
here increases with the complexity of the project,
which can involve anything from a power plant
to a factory or a subway line.
Production Processes has developed a
method known as Siemens Risk Analysis (sira)
that minimizes such risks by identifying them at
an early stage. sira provides a graphic depiction
of risk probability in the form of symbols such as
spheres whose color, size, and position represent
the chances of a particular risk in combination
with its potential financial effects and the level of
risk consciousness in the project team. This socalled
sira.iris summarizes the complete project
risk situation in just one image. To date, PP researchers
have used sira to generate 110 risk
analyses. One of these was carried out for the
subway system in Oslo, Norway, where a new
brake developed by Siemens has been used for
the first time. The situation was a textbook example
of risk analysis with major consequences
if, for example, a need for additional testing had
resulted in delayed delivery of the component.
CT’s risk analysts also enjoy an outstanding reputation
among power plant construction companies
where they are routinely called in to examine
projects above a certain size and level of
technical complexity with sira.
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New Tool Quantifies Risk
100
% Probability
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€1
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€10
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€100
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● Low ● Medium ● High risk
€1
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€100
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Qualitative risk