The manufacturing industry is undergoing a transformation, as digitization is increasingly reaching frontline employees in manufacturing companies. Under the buzzword "Connected Work," they too are expected to benefit from full digital connectivity with their work environment. But in many companies, digital tools are still competing with mountains of paper - inefficient, costly media disruptions are the order of the day. 

With the Connected Work Study 2023, the software company Operations1 wanted to shed more light on the topic of "connected work in production". To this end, the company surveyed a total of 175 specialists from the production environment on the status quo, the future of Connected Work and the necessary implementation measures. The results are some significant and surprising findings that were presented to the public at the end of February 2023. 

Only 3 % of the companies surveyed work paperless to date

 Paper has played a central role in the production environment since the beginning of industrialization: from the provision of order papers to the safeguarding of process knowledge to the documentation of quality findings, labeled or printed sheets play a major role. And even more than 10 years after the term "Industry 4.0" was defined, it is still in use everywhere. Although there is much more to the concept of Connected Work than the mere digitization of paper documents, the responses of those surveyed show that Connected Work, while increasingly important, is far from having become a mass phenomenon: Only 3 % of the companies surveyed stated that they have worked completely paperless to date, while 18 % work exclusively with paper-based processes. 17 % describe themselves as largely paperless and 62 % are still partially so.

Although the majority of respondents still work in a paper-based manner, there is a consensus that paper is no longer an up-to-date relic in the age of digitization. The study participants associate a number of operational challenges with paper-based working methods: The three biggest issues are the time-consuming creation and updating of documents (44 %), data procurement, interpretation efforts and archiving (34 %), and non-value-added activities such as manual data transfer (29 %).

In each case, the entire production chain is affected by paper-based processes: From the provision and training of knowledge, through the execution of activities, to the documentation and evaluation of information. A decisive reason to say goodbye to paper as quickly as possible is the associated savings potential: the costs of paper management are in the five-digit range for 25 % of the respondents, and for 5 % even more than €200,000 per year. "Companies initially see creation effort and paper costs as key reasons for moving toward Connected Work. But deeper conversations quickly identify opportunities for six- to seven-figure savings potential through the introduction of intuitive, seamless processes on the store floor," explains Benjamin Brockmann, CEO and Co-Founder of Operations1.  

The future is "connected 

The majority of respondents have recognized the potential to make processes more effective and drastically reduce cost points with Connected Work. 69 % see Connected Work as the future. At 59 % of the participants, corresponding initiatives are already being driven forward in the company. 21 % of the respondents even stated that they have a Connected Work officer who is specifically dedicated to this topic. Nevertheless, the opinion picture is not uniform, as 26 % do not yet see any initiatives in the area of Connected Work in their company.

The study results underscore that although Connected Work is not yet a mass phenomenon, it is increasingly establishing itself strongly on the store floor. This is a new development, as operational employees in production, logistics and other production-related support processes have long been neglected in digitization. In recent years, there has been a growing trend to equip even the "deskless" employees with digital technologies and to better network them within the organization. This networking will significantly change the manufacturing industry in the coming years. "For the path to Connected Work to succeed in the long term, it is important to be constantly open and curious about the changes that connected work brings. Only in this way can we all derive maximum benefit from the numerous possibilities and opportunities that the manufacturing industry will be presented with," says Brockmann. 

Study results briefly summarized

• While 18 % work purely paper-based, 3 % of the respondents stated that they are already completely paperless. 17 % describe themselves as largely paperless and as many as 62 % are already partially so.
• Connected Work is not yet an established mass phenomenon, but about 70% of the participants see it as a future field and 21% have already created a specialized role for it in their company.
• The field of activity of operational employees will change significantly in the next 20 years: From standard to non-standard activities. At the same time, this will entail a rethinking of how employees can be supported digitally in the best possible way in the future.
• In the target picture, study participants see mobile apps as leading technologies for empowering employees. According to the respondents, the greatest potential of Connected Work lies in productivity increases, easier document creation and updating, securing process knowledge, and shortening response times for problem resolution.
• When implementing Connected Work, it is essential to take a systematic approach that involves operational employees in a far-sighted manner. The key success factor here is good communication.

Source: www.operations1.com

This article originally appeared on m-q.ch - https://www.m-q.ch/de/connected-work-etabliert-sich-auf-dem-shopfloor/

A wound accompanies the affected person for days or even weeks. And yet, even the first minutes after an injury are important. Minutes in which first aiders are at work. As a first step, they must be able to assess a wound correctly. However, the assessment and triage of different wound types can already be challenging for first responders: what can and may they treat themselves, what belongs to a doctor and what even directly to the hospital? The third First Aider Symposium will address precisely these and other questions on November 4, 2023. 

The correct methods of wound treatment

When first responders decide they want to be able to treat a wound themselves, the question of the right method arises. The treatment of a wound should support wound healing, prevent wound infections, relieve the patient's pain and minimize the formation of scars. Factors to consider include the type of injury, the age of the wound, the degree of contamination and whether an infection exists. Depending on this, an x-ray may be needed to detect foreign bodies in the wound. It is also important to ask about tetanus vaccination protection. And these are just a few of many aspects.

Even if the wounds are large and the first responders send the patients to the doctor or hospital, initial care must be provided by lay helpers. So how should large wounds be dealt with and what is needed at first-aider level?

Wound assessment and treatment: at the 2023 First Responder Symposium and workshops.

Such issues are often challenging for first responders. They are taught far too rarely in traditional courses. Today, first responders are often very competent in assessing and treating polytrauma, but wound assessment and treatment can be a problem. For precisely this reason, the 3rd First Aider Symposium on November 4, 2023, will be devoted to this topic in depth and comprehensively.

The First Aider Symposium addresses all first aiders, whether beginners, advanced or professionals, whether Samaritans, company paramedics, private or blue-light organizations. Top-class speakers present their views on the various steps of wound assessment and treatment for about an hour each and answer the questions of the participants. The presentations:

• Assessing different wound types: Assessing and Triaging (Dr. Jeannette Porath)
• Treatment of different wound types: Latest findings in wound treatment for the ambulance service (Dr. Christina Ruob).
• Large wounds: How to deal with them and what do first responders need to know? (Dr. Felix Brinkmann)
• Thinking outside the box: wound care in disaster and war (Kevin Krausse, NATO Special Operations Medical Technician)

However, the topic of wound assessment and treatment will not be over on the evening of November 4, 2023. In the weeks following the First Aider Symposium, the organizers will organize workshops during which participants can practice wound treatment in a very concrete and practical way in smaller groups for half a day.

Supporting program and added values

At the First Aider Symposium 2023, as usual, the supporting program and other added values are also important:

• After each presentation, there will be plenty of room and time to ask questions of the speakers.
• All presentations will be simultaneously translated from German into French.
• Hours count toward the IVR certificate and SGAS continuing education credits are available.
• In the foyer, various exhibitors present their products, courses or other services.
• In addition, the SVBS AWARD 2022 for the First Responders of the Year 2022 will be presented during the First Responders Symposium.

The joint event of the Swiss Association for Industrial Paramedics (SVBS) and HARTMANN was held for the first time in 2021 and was immediately sold out with 270 participants. The second First Aider Symposium in 2022 was also booked out to the last seat. The atmosphere among the participants, exhibitors and speakers was excellent in each case and the feedback was positive all round. Naturally, the third First Aider Symposium on November 4, 2023 in the KKL Luzern would like to build on this success.

Info: www.ersthelfersymposium.ch
Registrations: www.ersthelfersymposium.ch/index.php/anmeldung
Application deadline: September 30, 2023
Program: www.ersthelfersymposium.ch/index.php/programm
Speakers: www.ersthelfersymposium.ch/index.php/referenten

This article originally appeared on m-q.ch - https://www.m-q.ch/de/ersthelfer-symposium-zum-thema-wundbeurteilung-und-behandlung/

Olivier Perrin will be Skyguide's new Chief Safety & Security Officer from July 1, 2023. He joined skyguide in 2000 as an engineer for satellite navigation systems. In 2010, he was promoted to Head of Military and Regional Aerodromes and in 2014 additionally assumed responsibility for all military operations and operations in lower airspace. He has been Head of Skyguide's ATM Virtual Center division since 2018. The 48-year-old manager is an active private pilot and serves as a colonel in the Swiss Air Force, where he has been commander of the air traffic control unit since 2017. Olivier Perrin holds a Master's degree in Geomatic Engineering from EPFL and an MBA from Concordia University in Canada. He is married and the father of three young adults. "We are undergoing a far-reaching, technology-driven transformation process and I am delighted to be part of the Executive Board in shaping this process while ensuring that the company continues to meet the highest safety standards," says Olivier Perrin.

Olivier Perrin will replace Klaus Affholderbach, who has been Chief Safety Officer and a member of the Executive Management since 2018. Klaus Affholderbach has held various positions at skyguide since joining the company in 2001, including Head of Air Traffic Management Geneva, Head of International Airports (Zurich and Geneva) and Head of the ATM Virtual Centre before Olivier Perrin. After 22 years with Skyguide, Klaus Affholderbach has decided to take a further career step as a partner in an international consulting firm and professional keynote speaker.

"Skyguide has an exemplary and deeply rooted safety culture. This is the result of many years of work under the leadership of Klaus Affholderbach. He has always impressed us with the depth and breadth of his knowledge and with his considered management style," says Alex Bristol, CEO of Skyguide. "I warmly welcome Olivier Perrin as a new member of the Executive Board. I am convinced that he is the right person to maintain our high safety standards by continuously investing in our safety culture. He is also the right person to lead the company through the next phases of transformation. I am very pleased to have him on our executive team."

Succession planning for Olivier Perrin in his current role has been initiated, Skyguide adds.

Source: Skyguide

This article originally appeared on m-q.ch - https://www.m-q.ch/de/olivier-perrin-wird-neuer-chief-safety-security-officer-von-skyguide/

Thanks to its strong position in the technology industry, Microsoft is in a good position to set new trends. So when Satya Nadella saysthat business leaders need to go beyond digital transformation, then this is absolutely true. The digital imperative implies more than urgency. It implies a necessity. Digitization efforts are not reserved for sophisticated companies with large technology budgets. They are necessary for "every organization in every industry".

The shift to digitization as a necessity signals the new major role that technology plays in our world. Technology no longer exists only on the periphery of business life. It has merged with so many processes, functions and people that it is at the center of daily operations. This is the true meaning of the digital imperative. It is integral to business functions and central to business growth.

What about digital transformation?

 Over the past decade, the digital transformation has led to companies at the forefront adopting a technology-based approach. It has initiated a rethink in modern companies and has significantly driven technological change.

What has changed is not the need for technology. It's the perpetual idea of change. According to Nadella, managers do not need to rethink, rediscover or constantly reshape their companies. The need for change has been recognized - and the first digital cogs should already be in place. The digital transformation should already be in full swing at company level.  

Why necessarily the digital imperative now?

The question many are asking is: Why now? Why has digitization become so important now (and not, say, ten years ago)?

The shift toward a digital imperative is actually a legacy of the digital transformation movement. Business leaders have made digital investments. CIOs and IT staff have implemented new solutions and trained employees. And the business benefits have been quickly and clearly seen. For the companies that jumped on the digitalization bandwagon ten years ago, the "transformation" has paid off. Studies showthat companies that embraced digital transformation early on were better able to accelerate their digitization efforts, adapt quickly and continue to be successful. Late adopters found that their progress lagged behind those that were better prepared.

"While digital transformation used to be a strategy that enabled companies to stand out and stay ahead of their competitors, today it is a matter of survival. Digitalization has become urgent and necessary. It is now a must," holds Cosima von Kries. 

In which areas is digitization inevitable?

The digital imperative, like digital transformation, covers key areas of the business. Not every company is on the same path, but typically digitalization is critical to:

• Data Storage/Management: Recently, the cloud has emerged as the key to data storage and management, replacing legacy, on-premise systems. Storage in the cloud offers its users more security and flexibility, as it can be scaled quickly and security updates and patches are taken care of.
• Collaboration systems: Collaboration app sales boomed during the pandemic, when remote workers needed new tools to collaborate effectively. Collaboration tools facilitate a remote/hybrid work model while enabling more structured communication in the office.
• Productivity Tools: Technologies that drive productivity are currently at the top of the corporate agenda. These include automation tools, workflow tools and applications that can track productivity throughout the lifecycle of a project. These tools not only provide an increase in employee productivity, but also typically include data profiling that enables better decision making.

The digital imperative: a call to action

Until now, digitalization has been a management decision. The word "transformation" was used to make it easier for managers to enter the digitalization process. It describes the metamorphosis from outdated methods to new technologies. Now that many digital systems are already in place, a new era of digitalization is beginning. A company that successfully uses automation tools, collaboration apps, AI-supported technologies and cloud-based systems will succeed in the market - in numerous and varied ways. 

Digital transformation is no longer an option for business leaders. Nor is digitalization something radical, sophisticated or easy to implement overnight. The digital imperative is above all a call to action. It heralds a new era. And it calls on the latecomers to digitalization to adapt - and quickly.

Source reference: 

• https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/digital-imperative-every-organization-satya-nadella/?trackingId=3FHeuQsbQSSIXOtFbjepbg%3D%3D
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/04/07/digital-transformation-is-coming-of-age/?sh=6c77e35a74ee

Source: Nintex

This article originally appeared on m-q.ch - https://www.m-q.ch/de/der-digitale-imperativ-ersetzt-die-digitale-transformation/

With sustainable and innovative solutions, Property One wants to create more value for customers and inspire them for real estate. The competencies include investment, financing, development, execution and marketing as well as real estate and family office. For the tenth anniversary celebrations, the agency Rosarot was able to prevail in a pitch with the idea "Property One turns Ten" and was appointed anniversary concept designer.

As part of the project, Rosarot created and applied a brand identity for the anniversary year under the sign of ten - for the invitations, for the photo shoot of the employees carried out by Rosarot and for the anniversary magazine.

Print Power for Property One

So that people will still be talking about Property One's ten-year anniversary in ten years' time, the magazine was Property One turns Ten The website is designed to be a "ten" website in which, among other things, experiences are presented, the history is illustrated, and the team is introduced. The number ten runs like a red thread through the design and the content.

Responsible at Property One: Kevin Hinder (Co-Founder, CEO), Nadia Smaldore (Head Marketing & Communication). Responsible at Rosarot: René Karrer (Creative Direction), Evelyne Stöckli (Consulting), Bianca Berger (Art Direction), Stefanie Steimer (Graphic Design), Flavia Hänni (DTP), Sarah Pietrasanta and Franz Neugebauer (Text and Concept).

At the beginning of February 2023 reported Advertisingweek.ch based on a study by the Link market research institute on trends and developments in the brand and advertising performance of brands from the financial and insurance sector in 2022. Selected highlights on 100 brands from the retail and consumer goods industry now follow. Around 13,000 online interviews per brand and year provide the basis for this.

Expansion of XXXLutz does not (yet) lead to more satisfied customers

In general, it can be said that the retailers Migros and Coop not only lead the awareness ranking. In other categories such as special trustworthiness, consideration, offline and digital advertising and media perception, the two brands are also in a neck-and-neck race, with Migros always slightly ahead of Coop in first place.

In addition, a lot has happened in 2022, particularly in the Swiss furniture sector, which is clearly reflected in the results. A notable absolute increase in awareness in 2022 was recorded by the Austrian furniture retailer XXXLutz (+5.1 percentage points), which is hardly surprising given that the company is on an expansion course and at the beginning of 2022 the Swiss furniture chain Lipo acquired and had opened a second branch in Dietikon ZH in August.

What is striking here is that customer satisfaction is not yet on an expansion course at XXXLutz. With 19 percent, the furniture store occupies one of the lowest ranks in average, special customer satisfaction - among its direct competitors, only the furniture store Conforama, which has was taken over by XXXLutz, of all companies, at the beginning of 2023, a lower value (16 percent). Customer satisfaction at XXXLutz has also been trending downward since September 2021.

When looking at the increase in "Consideration" - the probability of being a customer (again) in the future - it is striking that the two furniture stores Livique and Jumbo 2022 were able to position themselves particularly positively with an increase of 5.2 percentage points each.

Brand Children in the Media Spotlight

The media perception figures reflect society's reaction to the latest news about various brands - this is particularly evident in 2022 with the Kinder brand as an example. Starting in mid-April, the perceived media reports among consumers increased significantly and peaked in mid-May. This is likely to be related to the Salmonella infections in European factories of the manufacturer Ferrero were reported at the time. Also a possible result of this reporting is the lower consideration of the Kinder brand over the year as a whole (-4.1 percentage points), which fell particularly sharply over the period from April to May.

Toblerone also had a conspicuous peak in media perception when it became known in June that part of their production moved from Bern to Slovakia is being made. As a result, the brand suffered persistently in terms of various key figures - including brand trust, perceived Swissness, quality perception and willingness to buy more - and was only able to recover somewhat in some areas. By June, for example, around 40 percent of the Swiss population had a particularly high level of brand trust in Toblerone; in July, it was still around 32 percent. Towards the end of the year, this rose again, but is still slightly below the values before the announcement.

Coop acquisition strengthens Jumbo brand

At the end of August 2022, it became public that the Jumbo DIY stores, which have been owned by Coop since 2021, would be merged with the own brand Bau+Hobby and the Branches to be continued under the Jumbo brand. The available data clearly shows that this has led to a strengthening of the Jumbo brand among consumers: for example, Jumbo 2022 recorded a consideration increase of 5 percentage points, a trust increase of 4.5 percentage points and a satisfaction increase of 4.6 percentage points.

Lindt and Zweifel dominate the majority readiness

Finally, in terms of willingness to pay more, Lindt and Zweifel are clear high performers, which are also at the absolute top outside the retail and consumer goods industries. In 2022, more than 20 percent of the population were willing to pay more for products from the two brands Lindt and Zweifel than for comparable products from other brands.

The two brands thus stand out in particular from the other retail and FMCG brands surveyed, all of which failed to achieve figures above 20 percent throughout the year. Ovaltine was the only FMCG brand to come close to this mark, with an average of around 17 percent.

About the methodology of the link study

• Population: Swiss resident population aged 15 to 79 years
• Total sample size: n= approx. 52,000
• Around 250 interviews per brand per calendar week and brand segment; for this annual review, rolling moving averages were formed over the last four calendar weeks in each case, i.e. approx. n=1,000 per data point and brand
• Confidence interval for total sample: max. +/- 3.1 percent (for 50% distribution).
• Research method: online interviews
• Quotation/weighting: by age, gender and region (interlocked)
• Random samples from the Link online panel, 100 percent of which is actively recruited through representative telephone surveys, reaching more than 97 percent of the relevant population; survey participants are excluded from follow-up surveys for at least three months at a time
• Survey period: 1.1.2022 to 31.12.2022

The small "Büssli" autonomously delivers goods from A to B, initially in a six-month trial project in Ebikon. Schindler employees can shop at Migros and have the goods delivered to their workplace by the "Loxo Alpha.

At 30 kilometers per hour, Loxo drives across pedestrian crossings, over traffic circles and past sidewalks, in the normal course of everyday traffic. The deliveries are monitored from an operations center, where an "operator" can intervene at any time if necessary.

Great potential

The potential of the startup, which grew out of the University of Applied Sciences Fribourg, is great. Several European countries are already interested, the application possibilities are diverse, flexible and above all correspond to the spirit of the times.

Startup accelerator PXP Ventures also recognized this in mid-2022: "We believe this is what the future of last-mile home delivery services will look like - Loxo simply solves problems," says Luc Holzach, co-founder of PXP Ventures. The accelerator is invested with marketing-related services, which are implemented by its sister company Partner & Partner in Winterthur. These include product design and branding, the website, various events, content marketing and numerous other services.

"With Partner & Partner, our technology gets a cool, contemporary branding and we have an experienced communications and marketing team on our side as a founding team," says Lara Amini, co-founder of Loxo.

"In a way, we provide Loxo's marketing department, because startups often can't afford the right resources or don't have the necessary know-how internally. And we wanted to take the opportunity to participate in this project. That's why we decided on this model together," says Luc Holzach.

PXP Ventures is also involved in other projects with similar models, such as Customer Metrics, which has recently been launched and offers standardized scoring models for measuring customer satisfaction - thus allowing conclusions to be drawn about internal and external areas for action in addition to benchmarking.

No, IRL is not the international country code of Ireland. The acronym stands for "In Real Life". And yet both interpretations have more in common than might be assumed at first glance.

IRL has long been slang in the gaming world and made it into the Oxford English Dictionary over 20 years ago. Now the term has made it into the corporate world as well. The reason for this, as for almost everything that has changed in the last three years, is the pandemic.

From gaming to marketing

The virus had caused about the same exodus in the offices as a fungus in the mid-19th century that caused potatoes to rot in the fields in Ireland. At that time, an estimated one million Irish people starved to death, and up to five million emigrated in the following years. During the pandemic, we were also forced to leave our offices. And thoroughly enjoyed it - many (75 percent of those surveyed, according to Swiss polls) have stayed the same, at least in part, to this day. Like the Irish overseas.

Abandoned office spaces and boardrooms also resemble the empty fields and yards of Ireland of yesteryear, just as the crowded screens in video calls resemble the images from the ships headed overseas. But no one has starved to death because of the pandemic. Starved, at most, by real encounters and emotions in the home office.

But we should not whine. Unlike the Irish who emigrated back then, today we have a choice of where we want to be and when. We can meet in the old world or the new. IRL, that is, or online. So, especially in our industry, it has become common to ask: Online or IRL. It seems we need this demarcation from "Real Life" to "Virtual Life". And this is by far not only meant locally, because besides the "where" it is also always about the "how". It's about proximity, body language and emotions - in short, about the real experience.

So when someone wants to show his or her skills IRL or asks for a meeting IRL, it's more than just about location. Think of who has migrated to the home office!

Foreign guests from the euro zone, as well as the USA, Great Britain and the Gulf States have returned, Graubünden vacations wrote in a communiqué on Thursday. With around 5.6 million overnight stays, overnight stays in Graubünden increased by eight percent compared to the previous year.

However, Swiss guests accounted for more than half of the overnight stays. 3.74 million nights were booked by their compatriots in Graubünden. This was the second best result in history.

Boom in the international guest sector

However, the growth rates of foreign guests were particularly impressive. Compared to the previous year, for example, 431 percent more guests came from the United Kingdom. A look at the books of internationally oriented destinations such as Davos Klosters, Engadin St. Moritz and Chur confirms the boom in foreigners.

Graubünden Ferien wants to build on this and is on the hunt for guests with campaigns in the Asian region. By 2024 at the latest, they expect "a noticeable return of guests from China". Graubünden is also being actively promoted in the Gulf States and the USA.

The primary goal is to attract "even more guests", Martin Vincenz, CEO of Graubünden Ferien, was quoted as saying in the press release. To achieve this, the company wants to strengthen cooperation even more and make better use of trends.

Graubünden presented as a natural metropolis

Abroad, Graubünden is presented as a natural metropolis of the Alps, as Vincenz states in response to a question from the Keystone-SDA news agency. The aim is to promote nature-based and gentle tourism in a targeted manner. With various partners, the aim is to spread the desire to spend vacations in idyllic and unspoilt Graubünden locations.

Guests from distant markets also travel in the low season. For Graubünden, this means that with these guests, occupancy can be better distributed throughout the year. This in turn would increase value creation, and this is part of sustainable development, Vincenz said. (SDA)

Digitalization and efficient quality management in industry require more than digital technologies. Companies that want to use them to optimize their costs and production must start thinking in terms of digital processes. Moreover, the supply chain in industrial companies does not end at the factory gate. Before a product reaches the end customer in the desired quality, numerous suppliers often contribute components. In addition to internal workflows, external workflows with suppliers and, in the final stage, with customers are also the norm. Computer-aided quality (CAQ) as a cross-plant quality management solution simplifies such processes enormously. What an intelligent CAQ application can do today can be explained using the workflow-oriented software developed by Fabasoft Approve for data and document management in industry.

What Computer-Aided Quality must achieve today

With computer-aided quality assurance in incoming and outgoing goods inspection or document, complaint and test equipment management, innovative production companies can digitize essential processes from start to finish, across multiple plants. A CAQ system fulfills the following important requirements in terms of optimized quality management:

• Bring together quality-relevant information: CAQ establishes a cross-plant connection of essential quality-relevant information. This includes, for example, different ERP data such as technical documents or contractual agreements.
• Engage all relevant stakeholders: Both internal and external partners are integrated into cross-company quality management processes in accordance with their access authorizations. A shared data environment enables location-independent access to documents and at the same time meets the highest requirements in terms of data protection and security.
• Integrate and consolidate data: Especially for large, globally operating companies, the support of a CAQ system is indispensable. This aggregates data from different plants and collects it on one platform. This allows companies to standardize their quality processes.
• Flexibly carry out modifications: No two industrial operations are the same. Especially those who manufacture specialized and individual products depend on the fact that digital workflows can be modified at any time. A CAQ environment should therefore ideally be flexible enough to adapt to changing internal requirements at any time.

An issue for SMEs in particular

"With a CAQ system, small and medium-sized companies as well as global corporations can take their quality management to a whole new level. For example, our customer Siemens Energy has now digitized quality-relevant processes along the entire value chain at 14 locations in eight countries," explains Andreas Dangl, Managing Director of Fabasoft Approve GmbH, a European software provider for technical data and document management in industry. "As a specialist for industrial solutions in the power generation and transmission segment, which are also installed in critical infrastructures, quality assurance is essential for Siemens Energy. Our CAQ system actively integrates suppliers into quality management. As a result, Siemens Energy benefits from an increase in the quality of individual components as well as overall products."

Source and further information: www.fabasoft.com/approve

This article originally appeared on m-q.ch - https://www.m-q.ch/de/wie-computer-aided-quality-die-produktion-optimiert/

The term resilience is first familiar from the environment of stress management: a resilient person is good at dealing with stress and crises, quickly regaining their equilibrium so they can continue to act and react. Simply put, a resilient person can handle disruption well. But what does the term mean in the context of production processes? And what does it have to do with manufacturing IT?

Resilience and Industry 4.0

Resilience is now also one of the top issues in the Industry 4.0 environment. In a white paper published by the Platform Industry 4.0 defines resilience as follows: "Entrepreneurial resilience is the ability of a company to withstand external shocks or upheavals in the social, economic or political environment and to adapt to new conditions. To this end, the white paper sorts various measures on the one hand into the strategic fields of action of the "Leitbild 2030 der Plattform Industrie 4.0". On the other hand, they are assigned to the three impact phases of preparation, mitigation and adaptation.

So in industry, resilience means that manufacturing companies make preparations to be more resilient. In the event of a disruption, the impact should be as mild as possible. It is also a matter of considering possible adjustments to better deal with changed circumstances. This closes the circle, because the latter adjustments form the starting point for preparing for new disruptions. The distinction according to the strategic fields of action (according to the mission statement 2030 of the Industrie 4.0 platform: sustainability, interoperability and sovereignty) will be discussed again later.

Flexibility and adaptability

To better understand resilience in the Industrie 4.0 environment, it is useful to distinguish between flexibility and adaptability:

• Flexibility means that a company or production can respond to disruptions or requirements at short notice and temporarily. After a certain time, the situation returns to normal.
• Mutability on the other hand, means that production can change to be able to cope with the new conditions in the long term and permanently.

Resilience requires both capabilities, flexibility and mutability. The methods differ depending on the capability. Therefore, it is important to identify early on how to respond: flexibly or adaptively - i.e., short-term and temporarily or long-term and permanently. Example: A company should react flexibly to the failure of an expected delivery - rather adaptably to the insolvency of an important supplier or the failure of a delivery route.

Excursus: Matrix production

Beyond resilience, matrix production is another Industrie 4.0 trend that has significant implications for manufacturing IT. According to the expertise of the research advisory board of the Industrie 4.0 platform, "Implementation of cyber-physical matrix production systems," such systems are "characterized by a modular structure, flexible control and interlinking of production resources, and a high level of information technology networking." Here, both flexibility and mutability play an essential role, since there are short-term requirements on the one hand and long-term changes in plans on the other. The document also introduces the concept of reconfigurability. This describes the ability of a production system to be reconfigured as required within the change corridor (cf. changeability). In a matrix production, the capabilities that support resilience are used proactively to use the available resources more efficiently. Thus, a matrix production benefits from resilience.

Example: In contrast to a production line, changes can be deliberately brought about in matrix production in order to manufacture other products or products in other batch sizes at short notice - either temporarily or permanently.

Sustainability, interoperability and sovereignty

Resilience builds on the three strategic action areas of sustainability, interoperability, and sovereignty. Sustainability goes far beyond the economical use of resources. Rather, it includes everything that is necessary for production to take place at all. In particular, the role of people as well as education and work organization are of importance here. Interoperability means both the interaction of different (IT) systems and standardization along supply chains. And Sovereignty includes not only security of supply, but also IT security issues and the development of new technologies. Even though these are all big words, there are many starting points for manufacturing IT. Concrete examples illustrate this.

Examples of manufacturing IT in the sustainability field of action:

• The energy management of production IT records consumption of all kinds and makes energy consumption plannable. As a result, external disruptions can be translated more quickly into changes to plans. In addition, targeted savings measures ensure that cost increases have as little impact as possible on production costs.
• Worker management as part of assembly processes ensures that even unskilled employees are quickly trained. This in turn is a good measure to counteract the shortage of skilled workers. On the assembly process modeling side, low-code and no-code ensure that fewer programmers are needed, which are also in short supply on the labor market.
• By means of qualification-based workforce scheduling, human capital is optimally utilized. At the same time, employees' skills can be tested and promoted on a time-controlled basis.

Examples of manufacturing IT in the field of action Interoperability:

• Based on open platform approaches, applications from different providers can be easily combined with each other. This creates a living ecosystem and significantly reduces dependence on individual providers. MPDV Mikrolab GmbH has developed the Manufacturing Integration Platform (MIP) for this purpose. More than 50 providers have already developed so-called mApps for the MIP, which can be combined with each other as desired.
• Manufacturing IT functions for material and inventory management ensure that it is always known when which material is needed and whether sufficient material is available in production or in the warehouse. This makes it easier to deal with disruptions in the supply chain.

Examples of manufacturing IT in the sovereignty action area:

• By using modern technologies such as artificial intelligence, manufacturing IT gets the most out of its own data. This enables manufacturing companies to identify deviations earlier and react to them more quickly.
• If quality assurance is also integrated into the production IT system, a holistic supplier evaluation can be carried out thanks to the comprehensive use of quality data. The aim here is to be able to compensate for any disruptions in the supply chains with alternative procurement options.

Manufacturing IT: Equipped for the future

Ultimately, resilience is based on the sum of many measures and methods for preparation, mitigation and adaptation. At the same time, a broad spectrum of fields of action has an influence on the resilience of production. From a distance, it doesn't look like manufacturing IT plays an important role. But the opposite is the case: manufacturing IT has a small impact, but in total it has a large impact on the whole. Depending on the company, different use cases are more or less relevant.

Author:
Markus Diesner is Senior Marketing Specialist Products at MPDV. You can find another article by this author here.

This article originally appeared on m-q.ch - https://www.m-q.ch/de/trends-der-fertigungs-it-2023-resiliente-produktion/

New quality indicators for hospitals and the software "Qlize!" were developed from several research projects at the University of Lucerne funded by the Swiss Agency for Innovation Promotion (Innosuisse). The development was led by Dr. Dr. Michael Havranek, Research Director of the Competence Center for Health Data Science, in cooperation with industry partner INMED and various hospital partners. The indicators have now become part of the mandatory measurement plan of the National Association for Quality Development in Hospitals and Clinics (ANQ). ANQ licenses and finances the software system and makes it available to all Swiss hospitals and clinics as well as to the cantonal health departments. The final part of the program's "rollout" took place on February 17.

Initial focus on unplanned re-entries

In the first phase, thirteen quality indicators on unplanned readmissions after hospitalization will be used to assess the quality of treatment provided by hospitals. However, the software contains more than 30 additional quality indicators on complications and deaths during hospitalization, which can also be used in the future. All indicators were developed using internationally established principles, which were further developed based on the conditions of the Swiss healthcare system and tested together with seven hospital partners.

The special feature of the software developed is that it enables hospitals to analyze their own treatment quality down to the smallest detail. On the one hand, the hospitals can check their own quality results in a statistical comparison with other hospitals. On the other hand, they can also narrow down their results across different patient groups down to the individual case and relate them to expected rates from prediction models. The prediction models used for this purpose were calculated on the basis of all Swiss hospitalizations and use methods from the field of artificial intelligence.

Data protection compliant approach

In order to be able to offer such detailed evaluation options at all, despite the strict data protection requirements, it was necessary to develop a two-stage procedure. First, the data supplied by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) for the whole of Switzerland is evaluated annually in order to provide the hospitals with their official quality results in statistical comparison with the other hospitals. Subsequently, the calculated prediction models are applied to the data provided by the hospitals themselves to enable them to make case-based comparisons with the expected rates.

In this way, it is possible for hospitals to analyze targeted groups of patients or even individual cases. For example, they can identify cases in which a low probability of a quality-relevant event (such as an unplanned readmission) was predicted, but such an event nevertheless occurred (e.g., due to a surgical complication). In order to communicate the diverse evaluation options in this regard, Michael Havranek had held two nationwide training events with simultaneous translation in French and Italian at the beginning of February on behalf of the ANQ, which were attended by around 150 hospitals.

Source: Lucerne University

This article originally appeared on m-q.ch - https://www.m-q.ch/de/neue-qualitaetsindikatoren-fuer-spitaeler-eingefuehrt/