Automation, Communication and Cybernetics in Science and Engineering 2013/2014

Research on Occupational Health and Safety can look back on a long history. Unfortunately, the results of this research are not manifested in public consciousness. Today, the biggest challenge to a scientist is to guarantee successful transfer between the research field “Occupational Health and Safety” and the actors in the sphere of practice. We cannot face the challenge by producing still more knowledge and research results, instead we need to restructure the whole transfer and the process of researching. In German research you may find different best practice that helps to optimize knowledge management. These best practices build on a new understanding of knowledge transfer, so called “transfer engineering”, and make use of governance and network management to support the policy about “Occupational Health and Safety”. Thus, research plans are structured in a novel manner, utilizing instruments of transfer in breadth and depth between scientists and practitioners and raising the visibility of a funding priority through its joint efforts on a topical core. These instruments of network management and transfer engineering will be the topic of this paper.

German emergency medical services (EMS) face the challenge to ensure high-quality emergency care against a background of continuously increasing numbers of emergency missions, resource shortages concomitant with greatly increased arrival times, particularly in rural areas. Because German EMS physicians are at maximum capacity, an immediate response is not always possible and thus delays in commencing advanced life support measures sometimes occur. In such scenarios, paramedics start the initial treatment until the EMS physician arrives. The delayed availability of a physician can defer the decision process of the paramedics and thus postpone the start of the patient’s essential treatment, which is particularly dangerous during the care of cardiovascular emergencies. Therefore, the project TemRas (Telemedical Rescue Assistance System) has developed an innovative concept to improve quality of emergency care. The objective is to introduce so-called tele-EMS physicians providing remote medical support for the emergency team on site by transmitting audio and video data, as well as vital signs and 12-lead-ECG from the emergency site to a teleconsultation center. In this paper the development process as well as first results of the evaluation phase and the impact for further use of telemedicine in emergency medical services are presented.

Auch jede zuerst rein technische oder organisatorische Lösung, wird ab dem Zeitpunkt ihrer Integration in soziale Interessensysteme zwangsläufig zu einer soziotechnischen Lösung. So verhält es sich auch im Falle der Einführung einer Web-Kollaborationsplattform in die bestehenden Strukturen des deutschen Normungswesens. Auch hier kann der Erfolg des Werkzeugs nur dann gewährleistet werden, wenn dieses Teil eines vollständigen soziotechnischen Lösungssystems ist. Die ursprünglichen Lösungselemente müssen hier durch menschliche Agenten, durch organisatorische Regeln und durch weitere technische Maßnahmen so eingebettet werden, dass das volle Potential der Lösung erzielt werden kann. Dies umzusetzen stellt in der organisationalen Praxis jedoch eine bisher nicht systematisch gelöste Problemstellung der Entwicklung komplexer Lösungssysteme dar. Der vorliegende Beitrag diskutiert einen hierauf ausgerichteten Ansatz, den „mininmal-konzeptualisierenden Ansatz“, der für die Bedürfnisse praktischer Anwender ohne Expertenwissen des Komplexitätsmanagements entwickelt wurde.

Dass Unternehmen dynamisch und flexibel auf Einflüsse aus der Umwelt reagieren müssen um Ihre Wettbewerbsfähigkeit zu sichern ist keine wirklich neue Erkenntnis. Aktuell aber sieht sich die deutsche Wirtschaft mit besonders folgenreichen Entwicklungen konfrontiert, die sich sowohl auf das individuelle Verhalten der Mitarbeiter als auch auf die Organisation als Ganzes auswirken. Ob demografischer Wandel, Virtualisierung von Produktionsprozessen, Cloud Services, Social Trademarks, verkürzte Produktlebenszyklen oder Crowdsourcing – die gegenwärtigen gesellschaftlichen, ökonomischen und technologischen Trends stellen Unternehmen vor besondere Herausforderungen. Die Lösung scheint klar. Innovationen müssen her – schneller, höher, weiter und besser. Doch was sind überhaupt Innovationen? Und welche Strategien und Maßnahmen können Unternehmen ergreifen, um ihre Innovationsfähigkeit zu erhöhen und langfristig zu sichern?

Das Management von Innovationsprozessen erfolgt in wissensintensiven Organisationen häufig anhand linearer Modelle wie Stage-Gate-Ansätzen, die hohe Anforderungen an Planbarkeit stellen. Eine sinnvolle Erweiterung derartiger Ansätze bieten kybernetische Prinzipien, die ein iteratives Management von Innovationsprozessen unter Betrachtung großer Systemrahmen unterstützen. Entscheidungsträger sind in dieser Hinsicht verstärkt gefordert, ihre lineare Perspektive auf Innovationsprozesse durch die Analyse und Gestaltung innovationsförderlicher Rahmenbedingungen zu erweitern und damit die Ausschöpfung aller vorhandenen menschlichen, organisationalen und technischen Innovationspotenziale zu unterstützen. Ein praxiserprobtes Tool zur Diagnose und Gestaltung innovationsförderlicher Rahmenbedingungen bietet der Strategieplaner innoBOOST.

Selbständige Mitarbeiter und Mitarbeiterinnen brauchen mehr Führung. Bei unselbständigen sagt man als Chef einmal was zu tun ist und dann werden Anweisungen eben ausgeführt, ohne weiter nachzudenken. Da wir uns aber Mitarbeiter als Mitgestalter und Mit-Unternehmer der eigenen Organisation wünschen, müssen wir ihnen einerseits viel Selbständigkeit und Entfaltungsspielraum geben. Andererseits gehen Mitarbeiter dann mit Anweisungen des Chefs anders um. Sie denken darüber nach und haben schnell eigene, oft auch bessere Ideen. Und dann bin ich als Chef schon wieder gefragt, zu führen, und das viel öfter als vorher.

Anders als oftmals „pessimistisch“ geprägte Darstellungen es erwarten lassen, birgt der demografische Wandel vielfältige Chancen und Möglichkeiten im Hinblick auf Innovationen in Unternehmen und Gesellschaft. Die Forschung konzentriert sich dabei vor allem auf die Entwicklung von Konzepten zur Unternehmens- und Arbeitsorganisation einerseits und zur Nutzung von veränderten Erwerbsbiografien andererseits. Eine ergänzende Perspektive dieser Handlungsfelder liegt in sich verändernden technischen Möglichkeiten und Bedingungen, die als Treiber der demografischen Chancen sowohl für den industriellen Sektor als auch für den Dienstleistungsbereich fungieren können. Diese Möglichkeiten und Bedingungen werden im folgenden Beitrag vor dem Hintergrund des Zukunftskonzepts Industrie 4.0 diskutiert und hinsichtlich ihrer Implikationen für die zukünftige Unternehmens- und Arbeitsorganisation erörtert.

Sowohl der globale Wettbewerb als auch der daraus resultierende Druck, innovationsfähig zu bleiben (vgl. Mainzer, Interdisziplinären. Theorie, Praxis, Probleme., 2010, VII), sind von besonderer Bedeutung für das Konzept moderner Forschung und Entwicklung, die verstärkt in großen Forschungsverbünden stattfindet. Um der vorherrschenden Komplexität solcher Verbünde und den gleichzeitig hohen Erwartungen, etwa an die Innovationskraft, gerecht zu werden, sind Eigenschaften wie „synergetische“ Kooperationsstrukturen und die Ausbildung „emergenten“ Verhaltens notwendig. Hierzu benötigen Forschungsverbünde angemessene Ansätze, die die Vernetzung verschiedener Disziplinen, Kompetenzen, Wissen, (wissenschaftlicher) Erfahrungen und Kulturen so unterstützen, dass ein innovationsförderliches Milieu entsteht. In diesem Artikel wird ein innovationsförderlicher Knowledge Engineering Ansatz vorgestellt, der prozessbegleitend in inter-und transdisziplinären Forschungsverbünden implementiert und weiterentwickelt wird.

Interdisciplinary scientific cooperation plays a decisive role for the generation of new knowledge. The augmenting dynamic and complexity of scientific forms of cooperation require new approaches for interlinking people and knowledge from different disciplines to enable people for succeeding in interdisciplinary cooperation. Concerning the case of the cluster of excellence

Integrative Production Technology for High-Wage Countries

at RWTH Aachen University this challenge is addressed by cross sectional processes (CSP). CSP are supporting networking processes and strategic cluster development by means of learning and knowledge management. Through cross-sectional activities, a new method for knowledge and organizational development was identified –

scientific cooperation engineering

. It aspires to support the transfer of highly complex, dynamic and interdisciplinary research cooperation into sustainable and robust structures. The design of

scientific cooperation engineering

will be outlined in this position paper.

The introduction of a Telematic Rescue Assistance System into the German Emergency Medical Services aims at the enhancement of treatment quality and efficiency of rescue operations. Rescue teams are supported on site by a specialized emergency physician in a remote Competence Centre. Using mobile radio networks the Telematic Rescue Assistance System enables real time transmission of voice communication, vital parameters, pictures and videos from any emergency site. The successful and sustainable operation of a Telematic Rescue Assistance System in German Emergency Medical Services organizations requires the elaboration of a context and object adjusted implementation strategy. Dealing with technology change in a so called High Reliability Organization, organizational culture and structure affect primarily the design of available implementation instruments. Further requirements to the arrangement of an implementation process result from the sociotechnical specificities of the Telematic Rescue Assistance System. The present work presents the methodology used within the research project to develop an adequate implementation strategy, pointing out the relevant requirements and the chosen instruments to implement the system within five different Emergency Medical Services departments in 2012.

In June 2012 the further funding of the research cluster of excellence (CoE) “Tailor-Made Fuels from Biomass” (TMFB) at RWTH Aachen University (2012–2017) was announced by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Council of Science and Humanities. In this context the Supplementary Cluster Activities (SCA) within the CoE were enlarged to expend the promotion of an effective and efficient cross linking of CoE members by means of knowledge engineering and knowledge transfer, such as the determination and measurement of cluster-specific key performance indicators.

Overall, the SCA aspire to ensure the high quality of research by measuring and evaluating the performance of the cluster. Therefore inter alia in the first funding period a cluster-specific Balanced Scorecard was implemented and regularly adapted for the requirements of the cluster. This yearly evaluation rather deals with performance measurement on a meta level, admits a cluster wide overview of research level and gives recommendations of action to the cluster management. The augmenting dynamic and complexity of scientific forms of cooperation require new approaches for interlinking people and knowledge from different disciplines to enable people for succeeding in interdisciplinary cooperation and in general lead the CoE-“TMFB” to success.

Preliminary studies, e.g. empirical analyzes as well as recommendations of the German Council of Science and Humanities, offer further valuable clues to relevant indicators of scientific processes such as in CoE-“TMFB”. Here the combination of quantitative and qualitative parameters is discussed to measure performance in a complex cluster. Therefore the further development of performance measurement in the second funding period will establish an advanced performance measurement approach which supplements the contemporary cluster-specific Balanced Scorecard and target interdisciplinary performance comparison on sub-project (micro) level. For this purpose it is necessary to analyze and operationalize the requirements i.e. of the management, industrial partners or the research funding organizations. More importantly thematic key aspects such as output, interdisziplinarity, international presence, impact of the cluster as a system and internal process enhancement have to be considered and integrated. This new approach will operate parallel to the BSC and supplement the contemporary evaluation approach.

While measuring the degree of target achievement is supposed to be more relevant in DFG-audits, the quality of internal, interdisciplinary processes is an important indicator of cluster-internal target achievement, too. The improvement of the quality of processes will be supported by the investigation of potential for optimization and efficient cross-linking of the CoE members. This aspires a more efficient use of resources parallel to a continuously high quality of research results. The vision of SCA is to foster interdisciplinary exchange and a continuous comparison of research achievements of the CoE in accordance with the overall vision of the cluster and the DFG performance criteria.

Regional innovative capability is described through a complex interaction of the dimensions human, organization and technology, which needs to be measured in a differentiated manner. The objective of this paper is the development and testing of an extended set of indicators as the basis of a measuring instrument for regional innovative capability. Therefore, three existing approaches provide the basis for the compilation of this extended set. Influenced by fundamental and formal requirements, key indicators as well as certain add-on indicators are identified, which are verified on the example of the Aachen region in Germany (This paper represents the working process and the results of an unpublished master’s thesis by the first author. The full validation of the extended set of indicators on the example of the Aachen region can be provided by the author). The Aachen region shows many distinct characteristics of indicators allowing a reflection of regional innovative capability. This developed set of indicators represents the basis for a further development towards a measurement and management tool that enables the more precise evaluation of the innovation capability of a region, as well as statements on sensitive control factors of regional development.

The capability of regions to continuously innovate constitutes a key factor for competitiveness. Regional innovative capability is described through a complex interaction of the dimensions human, organization and technology, which needs to be measured in a differentiated manner. This paper aims at the identification and operationalization of regional innovative capability. The objective is to compile an extended set of indicators to provide a basis for a further development towards a measurement and management tool that enables the more precise evaluation of the innovation capability of a region, as well as statements on sensitive control factors of regional development.

The paper presents the design and architecture of a multifunctional telemedicine system for real-time teleconsultation in pre-hospital emergency medical services (EMS). The application of telemedicine has shown to improve patient treatment quality and efficiency in various settings. Still, its use by pre-hospital EMS is lacking. Current technical, normative standards do not provide a sufficient framework in order to design a multifunctional telemedicine system for teleconsultation in pre-hospital EMS. Starting with a use-case driven requirements analysis, a telemedicine system usable in this setting is designed, realized and currently in use for evaluation by selected German EMS departments. This system uses commercial off-the-shelf medical devices, custom devices for communication and an individual system architecture, integrating the heterogeneous components as required by the defined use-cases.

Not only in the German research landscape, the establishment of research alliances has become a key element of the national funding structure, especially in order to address current societal, economic and scientific problems. These complex problems are mutually investigated by heterogeneous actors whose heterogeneity can be mainly seen in a combined research effort of scientific as well as business-driven research – a so-called transdisciplinary research approach. The main challenge which arises from this approach covers the cooperation of numerous actors in a complex and often intransparent collaboration structure. To allow transparence of the central research topics within these structures, publication data has to be consolidated and classified.

In order to address this challenge, the establishment of an information management environment supports the ability to handle big repositories of publication data on the one hand and to visualize different thematic interests on the other hand. In this example, fostering cooperation among actors, by revealing thematic accordance, connections and development, becomes possible.

The paper addresses the question in how far an information management environment can support this revealing process by means of classification publication data. Focusing on an information management environment in its pre-prototypic stage, the development process as well as initial results are presented. The results are derived from publication data examined by the transdisciplinary research alliance “Innovative capability in demographic change” initiated by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

In times of globalized markets growing cutthroat competition compels companies to continuously identify new optimization potentials along their supply chain (Killich and Luczak, Unternehmenskooperation für kleine und mittelständische Unternehmen, p. V, 2003). In particular small and medium sized logistic service providers suffer from this development and lack the resources and geographical reach as well as the required quantities of customer shipments (Klaas-Wissing and Albers, Int J Logist Res Appl 13, p. 494, 2010).

Freight cooperation offers new alternatives for logistic service providers to assert their position against big competitors by bundling shipments of several participating logistic service providers and thereby, generating synergetic effects. Successful cooperation already exists in terms of general cargo and full truck load situations. Yet, in the case of Less than Truck Load shipments, no comparable solutions are available today. Usually not enough shipments with similar dispatch or receipt places exist, which leads to a small rate of return per truck (Tummel et al., Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Logistics and Transport & the 4th International Conference on Operations and Supply Chain Management, p. 2, 2011).

Hence, a suitable business model for a Less Than Truck Load freight cooperation is needed which is based on an IT-based central disposition, while in the meantime utilization rates are maximized and the number of empty runs is reduced (Bretzke, Logistische Netzwerke, p. 334, 2010). In addition, adequate fairness models and incentive concepts are fundamental requirements which have to be covered by the business model in order to overcome doubts of potential participants and to guarantee a successful cooperation.

In this paper we describe the development for a Less Than Truck Load business model, which is developed by the Project “Cloud Logistic” funded by the state North Rhine-Westphalia of the Federal Republic of Germany and by means of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). For the development we apply a combination of the Business Model Canvas (Osterwalder and Pigneur, Business Model Generation, p. 14, 2009) and a trend-based scenario technique, which enables us to create future scenarios and to derive action plans. Thereby, we establish a robust and sustainable business model for freight cooperation networks in the Less Than Truck Load segment.

Collaborative research centers and clusters of excellence constitute public funded programs aspiring to advance research in interdisciplinary forms of collaboration throughout Germany. Due to emerging funding volumes and increasing expectations in results, concepts for performance measurement and management gain in importance. Results of an empirical study among all actively funded collaborative research centers and clusters of excellence make obvious that key performance indicators – such as the quota of publications or the number of international visiting researchers – are central. Nevertheless, holistic methods and concepts of performance measurement seem still not to be widespread among respective speakers and chief executive officers.

Several learning and training models have tried to explain the complex process of learning – one of them is the Learning Cycle of David A. Kolb. At the Center for Learning and Knowledge Management (ZLW) of RWTH Aachen University this model has been used as a didactical guideline for the consecutive training of university staff. Practical training experience showed that Kolb’s Learning Cycle has to be modified for the training of higher education teachers due to different requirements of diverse target groups and varying teaching and learning contents. Based on scientific critique and the practical training experience of the ZLW, several specifications for the development of a new training model have been derived and are implemented in an innovative training model for the qualification program in order to promote an improved learning process for university teaching staff of the RWTH Aachen University.

The basic university teacher training at RWTH Aachen University is the 2-day seminar “Academic Teaching” which addresses the qualification needs of (mainly) doctoral students who are short on teaching experience. The target of the training is to set a starting point for the development of the participants’ teaching competence. The orientation on a five-stage development model of teaching competence serves as the content structure of the seminar, suggesting that different topics are important for the participants at different stages of their teaching competence development. The didactical method to convey these contents is the constructivist ExAcT training model based on current findings of pedagogical psychology and neuroscience. In the following sections it will be described how the goal of teaching competence development for new university teachers is attained by considering development stages of teaching competence through the content structure and by using the training model as didactical method in the seminar “Academic Teaching”.

This work introduces the virtual theatre, a platform allowing free exploration of a virtual environment, as an instrument for engineering education. The virtual theatre features three main user components: a head mounted display, a data glove and an omnidirectional floor. These interfaces for perception, navigation and interaction allow for more realistic and intuitive experiences within environments which are inaccessible in the real world. This paper describes the technical properties of the platform as well as studies on human experiences and behavior. It moreover presents current and future applications within the field of engineering education and discusses the underlying didactic principles.

High quality Engineering Education is the key to master the challenges of tomorrow. Universities need to adjust their curricula to current requirements to overcome the global shortage of engineers. TeachING-LearnING.EU supports them in identifying and achieving the necessary steps. The subject center for higher engineering education was founded in 2010 by the three universities RWTH Aachen University, Ruhr University Bochum and TU Dortmund University. Right from the start TeachING-LearnING.EU implemented a funding concept which allows engineering teaching staff to apply for financial support to implement innovative teaching ideas. Each semester, there is a call for ideas. The ideas are evaluated by TeachING-LearnING.EU, and the best applicants receive a funding of up to 30.000 EUR over a period of 1 year. The money can only be invested in staff costs. By the end of April 2012, 22 innovative teaching projects will have been supported by the Flexible Fund Program.

There is investment and benefit for all involved parties. Chairs and Institutes, whose staff receives funding, still need to invest manpower and additional money as the funding regularly does not cover 100 % of cost. In addition to financial funding they benefit from competent consulting and sustained improvements in teaching and learning strategies. TeachING-LearnING.EU invests money in funding but the Subject Center’s central goal goes beyond financial support: They give the faculties’ teaching staff help and advice in didactical questions and – this is the main point – scientifically evaluate the funded ideas. This makes a central contribution to scholarship of teaching within TeachING-LearnING.EU’s sphere of activity.

The evaluation concept focuses on the impact the funded ideas have on teaching and learning in engineering education, Evaluation und Qualitätsentwicklung. Eine Grundlage für wirkungsorientiertes Qualitätsmanagement, Waxmann, Münster). It has three target levels: On the highest level the ideas are evaluated with regards to their contribution to the general goals of TeachING-LearnING.EU, e.g. implementing the shift from teacher centered to student centered courses. On the second level evaluation focuses on the aims of the Flexible Funds concept, e.g. increasing the teaching staff’s motivation to experiment with new approaches in teaching. On the most detailed level the ideas are evaluated with regards to their explicit goals and if these are reached.

In the full paper we will explain the evaluation concept and process in detail. We will present first evaluation results and give insight in funded ideas and illustrate their results.

The ratification of the Bologna Process in 1999 has led to fundamental changes in the European higher education area. After more than a decade of Bologna reform efforts, the question arises whether and to what degree the declared goals of the Bologna Process (e.g. increasing student mobility and employability) have been achieved in the educational practice, i.e. on the individual university level. This desire points to the question of what these goals exactly are, how they are structured and how to eventually prioritize among them. The search for a comparable systematisation of the reforms objectives unveils only its absence.

This paper presents the work of higher engineering education scientists on the development of a comprehensive understanding of the Bologna Process objectives, their interconnections and practical measures in order to make this large scale reform accessible to the controlling of European universities’ decision making. To this aim, the objectives are mapped in the form of a software based system model, according to the theory of

System Dynamics

. The elements of the model are fully based on the official Bologna declarations, memoranda as well as expert literature. It therefore claims to represent the state of the art on the goals of the Bologna Process. For the first time this system model structures the Bologna goals ordered by levels of hierarchy and it quantifies their dependencies on the basis of the

System Dynamics

approach. The validity of the model has been assessed based on qualitative and quantitative data, generated in a study involving 29 German experts in the field of higher education specialized on the Bologna Process. Further research will concentrate on a practical application of this system model, including the evaluation of the model’s statements. Ultimately, the model’s insights will enable European universities to estimate their respective degrees of Bologna goal attainment and to identify key measures for individual improvement.

Engineering students are, compared to their counterparts in other disciplines, less mobile resulting in limited intercultural skills. Globalization requires professionals being excellent in their fields and being able to work on a global scale at the same time. So far, engineering education has put too little stress on integrating intercultural competences into curricula. This paper shows new approaches to incorporate international experiences into higher engineering education. First, it analyzes the current situation of international student mobility in Germany, before emphasizing the general motivation for international student exchange especially in engineering science. A consortium of three excellent German engineering universities was put up to introduce new measures for increasing student mobility as is described subsequently. This paper represents work in progress. Thus, further results will be published continuously.

Though higher engineering education generally lacks students in Germany, some universities are faced with the challenge of dealing with extremely high enrollment numbers due to recent changes in education policy. In the winter term 2011/2012 approx. 1,900 students enrolled for mechanical engineering and industrial engineering and management at RWTH (Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule) Aachen University putting the educational skills of teachers to the test. Obviously, new concepts become necessary to find adequate teaching models.

Modern information and communication technologies have already become a constant part of everyday life among the new generation of students. But their full potential for higher education has not yet been exploited. Concepts hitherto focused on integrating technologies such as Audience-Response-Systems or mobile applications into face-to-face lectures. Only recently a new approach emerged, bearing the potential of teaching increasingly high numbers of students entirely online and of revolutionizing the higher education landscape: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). They seem to highly motivate their students to actively participate in online courses and to interact with teachers and fellow students using social and technical networks. As demonstrated by initiatives such as the Khan Academy, udacity, edX, or Coursera MOOCs attract enormous numbers of students (In 2011 160,000 students followed the Stanford lecture on Artificial Intelligence by Prof. Thrun and Prof. Norvig with 23,000 earning a certificate).

This paper aims to show how MOOCs might help to tackle the challenges of teaching large classes in higher engineering education. As they have attracted large amounts of students especially for engineering topics, they might be adequate for higher engineering education. A variety of MOOCs have emerged so far based on fundamentally different learning principles that cater to the needs of engineering education in different ways.

Thus, this paper categorizes MOOCs according to their underlying didactical approaches in a first step. In a second step it is evaluated to what extend the different kinds of MOOCs can be used to implement active and problem-based learning in a large class and for what purposes in engineering education they can be best applied. The results are useful for any university teacher in higher engineering education dealing with large classes.

The attitude of German engineering students towards spending a certain period of time abroad is highly ambivalent. Although German engineering students assume that international experience is a key competence and a career-enhancing qualification, outbound mobility (referring to the number of students who leave Germany to another country for the purpose of study or a traineeship) in higher engineering education lies below average compared to other disciplines. One reason frequently listed by students is the intensive workload in engineering sciences hampering their opportunities to go abroad as well as difficult recognition procedures of study credits accomplished abroad. Statistics show that the changes brought about by the Bologna Reform (initiated in 1999 to align European higher education and to establish a common credit transfer system) did not result in increased student mobility throughout Europe. It rather resulted in less flexible curricula leaving students not enough time for spending a certain part of their studies abroad. This paper analyzes the current situation of international student mobility in German higher engineering education especially focusing on outbound mobility. It is based on the results of a survey carried out among approx. 35,000 students at one of Germany’s most renowned technical universities. The study deals with the motivation and the obstacles faced by engineering students aiming at integrating international exchange periods into their curricula. Therefore, an anonymous wide ranging survey was distributed among all students at the above mentioned university. Topics such as financial issues, the recognition of credit points, and career advice services influencing their decision in or not in favor of an international exchange are investigated among other aspects. The results of the survey are finally summarized together with derived measures to increase the participation of engineering students in international exchange programs.

64 von 1000 deutschen Studierenden absolvierten im Jahr 2010, laut DAAD, einen studienbezogenen Auslandsaufenthalt. Die Mobilitätsrate der verschiedenen Fachdisziplinen variiert jedoch stark. Besonders unter den Studierenden der Ingenieurwissenschaften ist die Mobilitätsrate mit 4 % vergleichsweise gering. Während aktuelle Statistiken lediglich den Ist-Zustand abbilden, gibt es wenige Daten zu den Gründen hinter der bei Ingenieuren geringer ausfallenden Auslandsmobilität.

Daher wurde vom IMA/ZLW & IfU in enger Kooperation mit dem International Office der RWTH im November 2012 eine weitreichende Online Umfrage unter sämtlichen Studierenden der Universität durchgeführt. Die Studie “GoING abroad – Auslandsmobilität an der RWTH Aachen University” konzentrierte sich auf mobilitätsfördernde sowie -hemmende Faktoren. Dabei konnte einerseits festgestellt werden, dass die Ingenieurstudierenden an der RWTH vergleichsweise häufig ins Ausland gehen. Motivationsgründe sind hauptsächlich die Verbesserung von Fremdsprachenkenntnissen oder das Kennenlernen einer neuen Kultur. Hindernisse werden vor allem bei der Anerkennung der im Ausland erbrachten Studienleistungen berichtet.

Angeleitet durch die Methode des World Cafés fand im Kontext der 6. GEW-Wissenschaftskonferenz 2012 in Herrsching ein Austausch zur Thematik „Was macht den Traumjob Wissenschaft aus?\ statt. Auf Basis der Erfahrungen der heterogen durchmischten Teilnehmergruppe von Studierenden, WissenschaftlerInnen und weiteren Experten, wurden 5 Schwerpunktthemen identifiziert und diskutiert: Arbeitsgestaltung, Hochschulstrukturen, wissenschaftliche Qualifizierung und Personalentwicklung, Wünsche und Utopien. Neben der Darstellung der wichtigsten Inhalte der einzelnen Schwerpunkte schließt der Beitrag mit einem Fazit zur eingangs gestellten Frage ab und zeigt zusammenfassend die Aspekte auf, welche die Attraktivität einer wissenschaftlichen Karriere ausmachen.

Wird Deutschland dem Wettbewerbsdruck der Globalisierung standhalten können und wenn ja wie können wir seine Stärken dazu nutzten und in welchen Bereichen müssen wir ganz besonders hinschauen um den Herausforderungen der Zukunft wie den Demografischen Wandel, die Urbanisierung, die Ressourcenknappheit und den Klimawandel erfolgreich entgegenzutreten? Deutschland ist für die kommende Jahre sehr gut aufgestellt. In diesem Beitrag werden Perspektiven vorgestellt, die auf einen systemorientierten Innovationsansatz beruhen, der soziale, organisatorische und technische Innovation integriert, um für uns auch in Zukunft ein weltweites Alleinstellungsmerkmal im internationalen Wettbewerb zu ermöglichen.

In den letzten zehn Jahren haben tiefgreifende Veränderungen in der Hochschullehre stattgefunden. Unterschiedliche Strömungen, z. B. die Vermittlung überfachlicher Kompetenzen, ein verändertes Mediennutzungsverhalten der heutigen Schulabsolventen und -absolventinnen sowie steigende Studierendenzahlen haben Einfluss auf die Gestaltung der Hochschullehre genommen. Aufgrund der veränderten Umstände ist eine Anpassung der Lehrmethoden und -konzepte erforderlich. Studierende rücken dabei ins Zentrum des Lehr- und Lernprozesses. Besonders für Lehrveranstaltungen mit großen Hörerzahlen ist dies eine besondere Herausforderung. Am Beispiel der Lehrveranstaltung „Kommunikation und Organisationsentwicklung“ des Zentrums für Lern- und Wissensmanagement (ZLW) der RWTH Aachen University wird aufgezeigt, wie die Vorlesung ein volständiges Redesign erfahren hat, um den veränderten Rahmenbedingungen und Anforderungen gerecht zu werden.

Soft skills have become more important in higher education in order to prepare students for employability in later career. In XL-Classes, the theoretical conveyance of soft skills to students presents a special challenge. One approach for the application of theoretically imparted knowledge in practice is the concept of simulation-based learning. Simulations have been used for a long time in a variety of disciplines, particularly in high-risk areas such as medicine, aviation and space industries, using virtual environments to prepare professionals for real life situations.

The term ‘simulation-based learning’ is particularly used in medical education. Approaches of simulation-based learning are increasingly used by other disciplines in the context of higher education and the education of students. Based on a definition of the term ‘simulation-based learning’ a concept to convey soft skills in higher education courses is developed. A practical implementation of the concept is demonstrated in the paper by using it in the XL-Class “Communication and Organizational Development” for students in the bachelor programme Mechanical Engineering at RWTH Aachen University. Here, the foundation of an enterprise in the automotive industry is simulated within 1.5 days. Key skills such as team building, time management and project management are applied, experienced and trained in the simulation. Overall, 600 students pass an organizational development process in which they establish a fictional automotive company with various departments, develop target systems as well as business strategies and construct an innovative car prototype. The basic knowledge for the realization of this task is mediated via microteaching units. Therefore the developed concept transfers soft skills knowledge to students by experiencing and training them in a simulated environment.

At the beginning of their studies the majority of freshmen are overcharged in the transition from high school to academic education. The biggest continual problems appear in mathematics for engineering students or natural scientists. This is based on the high degree of abstraction and on the fact that the mathematical education takes place at the beginning of their studies. Thus, deficiencies become apparent at an early stage. In order to facilitate freshmen’s transition from high school to the university the Department of Mathematics of Technische Universität Berlin offers a four-week introductory course to mathematics before the beginning of each semester. The course is addressed particularly to freshmen of engineering, natural sciences and mathematics. Additionally, a so-called mathematics computer course is offered with capacity for a part of the participants of the introductory mathematics course. In this two-week course the participants learn how to handle the Linux operating system, how to employ a computer algebra system (Maple) and they obtain an introduction to the scientific text processing system LaTeX. We investigated if the mathematics bridge course and the mathematics computer course lead to a better academic performance by the students in their later courses.

Far reaching changes in university higher education have taken place in the last ten years. Different factors, e.g. necessity of on-professional competences in engineering education, rising or vast student numbers and new technical possibilities, have influenced the academic teaching and learning process. Therefore interdependence between requirements and didactical-educational possibilities is given. Because of changed circumstances an adaption of teaching methods and concepts is required. At the same time Bologna arrogates students to be placed in the centre of the teaching and learning process and claims on-professional competences for today’s students. Especially for XL-Classes this is a specific challenge. One of the questions ensuing is how to increase learning success by the use of specific didactical methods? With a research approach connecting different proven didactical concepts and considering the previously shown conditions, the concept of the lecture “communication and organizational development” (KOE) at RWTH Aachen University has been redesigned. This lecture, organized by the Institute Cluster IMA/ZLW & IfU at RWTH Aachen University, is mainly frequented by up to nearly 1300 students of the faculty of mechanical engineering and inherent part of the bachelor-curriculum. The following practical example prospects the multi-angulation of didactical concepts and shows up innovative educational teaching.

In the Competence and Service Centre TeachING-LearnING.EU students are involved in the improvement of teaching and learning using the strategic instrument of OpenBologna. It is based on the concept of Open Innovation developed and used by companies in the business sector to integrate customers actively in new product developments. The main methods within this strategic instrument are idea contests and lead student workshops.

This paper presents the main results of the first three idea contests, in which 80 ideas were submitted in total. With the method of qualitative content analysis, the students’ e-mails through which they submitted their ideas are investigated on a deeper level. As a result, the paper shows if students can be considered competent, active and constructive partners in terms of the improvement of teaching and learning. Moreover, it points out those areas in which the students see the biggest need for action. Since most ideas were submitted to the topics of virtual learning environments, organization/resources and digital technologies in lectures, the results of these topics are presented elaborately. The authors come to the conclusion that especially in the areas of virtual learning environments and digital technologies, students deliver a valuable input for the improvement of teaching and learning in engineering education.

In ingenieurwissenschaftlichen Studiengängen zählen praktische Erfahrungen sowie das Verständnis für die praktische Relevanz von Lerninhalten zu den Voraussetzungen eines erfolgreichen Studiums. In Grundlagenfächern wie Physik oder Chemie werden praktische Erfahrungen meist experimentell durch Laborarbeit gesammelt. Ein weiterer verbreiteter Ansatz zur Herstellung praktischer Relevanz sind Praktika oder Exkursionen. Aus Sicherheits- und Kostengründen wie auch aufgrund der Komplexität industrieller Produktionsstätten ist es für Studierende jedoch nicht möglich, solche Industrieanlagen frei zu erkunden und dort eigenständig zu experimentieren.

Um diese Problematik zu umgehen, können Industrieanlagen in virtuellen Umgebungen nachgebaut werden. In Simulationen oder Lernspielen (Serious Games) werden die Eigenschaften und Prinzipien einer Industrieanlage mit entsprechenden Kursinhalten verknüpft und dadurch nachvollziehbar gemacht. In virtuellen Lernumgebungen können Prozesse der Wissensaneignung selbst gesteuert werden. Es können Experimente durchgeführt werden, die unter physisch-realen Bedingungen zu gefährlich oder zu teuer wären. Weiterhin können Orte erschlossen werden, die ansonsten nicht erreichbar wären – sei es weil sie räumlich zu weit entfernt oder zeitlich in der Vergangenheit oder in der Zukunft liegen.

Ein Nachteil des Lernens mit Simulationen besteht in der Künstlichkeit des virtuellen Zugangs. Neben der Art der grafischen Gestaltung einer virtuellen Lernumgebung liegt häufig die Antwort für den Grund auf der Seite der Hardware. Natürliche Nutzerschnittstellen (engl. natural user interface, NUI) für Visualisierung, Navigation und Interaktion können eine authentischere Lernerfahrung als am PC ermöglichen und somit den Wissenstransfer des Gelernten auf spätere Anwendungssituationen erleichtern. In Mixed-Reality Simulatoren wie dem Virtual Theatre werden die Nutzerschnittstellen Head-Mounted Display, omnidirektionaler Boden und Datenhandschuh integriert und ermöglichen so eine uneingeschränkte Kopf- und Fortbewegung zur freien Erschließung virtueller Lernumgebung. Nach einer Beschreibung des technischen Aufbaus des Virtual Theatres beschreibt das Paper einen medienpsychologischen Forschungsansatz, mit dem der Zusammenhang von immersiver Hardware und Lernerfolg gemessen werden kann. Das Paper schließt mit einem Ausblick auf den Einsatz des Virtual Theatres in der Ingenieurausbildung.

Numerous reviews and studies have shown that Learning Management Systems at university level often are lacking from a number of characteristics such as the support of various didactical approaches, the possibility to consider different specifics of engineering disciplines or a lecturer friendly interface. In this paper, a new recommender system is proposed for teaching staff of engineering disciplines; the novelty of the recommender system is that criteria used by the system are based on standards for engineering education in conjunction with the framework for pedagogical evaluation of Virtual Learning Environments. The suitability assessment scenario being suggested identifies the various needs of teaching staff member with regards to his/her course, teaching methods and also suggests tools that are necessary to increase functionality.

Today there is a flood of e-learning and e-learning related solutions for engineering education. It is at least a time consuming task for a teacher to find an e-learning system, which matches their requirements. To assist teachers with this information overload, a web-based recommendation system for related e-learning solutions is under development to support teachers in the field of engineering education to find a matching e-learning system within minutes. Because the e-learning market is subject of very fast changes, an agile engineering process is used to ensure the capability to react on these changes. To solve the challenges of this project, an own user-flow visual programming language and an algorithm are under development. A special software stack is chosen to accelerate the development. Instead of classical back-office software to administer and maintain the project, a web-based approach is used – even for a complex editor. The determining of the necessary catalog of related solutions within “real-time” is based on big data technologies, data mining methods and statistically text analysis.

Teaching and learning in XL-classes is a huge challenge to both lecturers as well as students. While lecturers face the difficulty of speaking to a mostly loud and very heterogenic audience, students often lack the opportunity of being an active participant in class. To counteract these difficulties and give the opportunity of immediate feedback, an audience response system has been introduced in the class of information technology in mechanical engineering at RWTH Aachen University.

In a previously published paper (Stehling, Valerie, Ursula Bach, Anja Richert, and Sabina Jeschke. 2012. Teaching professional knowledge to XL – classes with the help of digital technologies.

ProPEL Conference Proceedings

) the theoretical background has been outlined and presumptions have been drawn. The described redeployment of a lecture of the mentioned size was expected to bring about an enhancement of the quality in teaching of professional knowledge. It was also supposed to foster the often desired shift from teaching to learning. Now, after a first trial and evaluation of the method, these presumptions can be tested.

In this paper clicker questions from the lecture and their results are the groundwork that allow for a review of the evaluation of the first trial using clicker software in class. Results shall then allow for a comparison of the intended goals with the actual outcomes from the students’ point of view. In addition to that, feedback and ideas for improvement through the evaluation of the “further comments” section by the “users” themselves can be gathered. The results of the analysis will then allow for an adjustment and improvement of the concept and may in the future give support to lecturers of other XL-classes that intend to implement an audience response system in their own lecture.

How can the systematic use of digital technologies affect a lecture of 1500 or more students? Moreover, to what extent will it affect the learning outcomes of the students?

At RWTH Aachen University, subjects like Mechanical Engineering have to cope with a very high number of students each semester – currently the number lies at approximately 1500 with an estimated increase up to 2000 in the next semester. In order to create an interactive learning environment despite these difficult conditions, the IMA/ZLW&IfU (Institute of Information Management in Mechanical Engineering, Center for Learning and Knowledge Management and Assoc. Institute for Management Cybernetics) of the RWTH Aachen University is currently developing a pilot scheme that includes the application of Audience Response Systems in lectures with such large numbers of student listeners.

The implementation of the described system demands a redesign of the lecture with special regards to the content. Questions have to be developed that allow the students to interact with the lecturer as well as each other. This variety of questions ranges from multiple-choice questions to the inquiry of calculation results etc.

When giving students the chance to actively take part in a lecture of the described size by answering questions the lecturer asks with the help of technical equipment – which could in the easiest case be their own mobile phones – the lecturer creates a room for interaction. In addition to that he has the chance to get an immediate insight into the perceived knowledge of his or her students. This in turn enables the lecturer to react to obvious knowledge gaps that obstruct successful learning outcomes of the students. An additional benefit hoped for is that the attention of the students – which is a difficult issue for lecturers that face lectures with such a large number of students – might be kept at a higher level than average.

The described redeployment of a lecture of the mentioned size is expected to bring about an enhancement of the quality in teaching of professional knowledge. The presumptions made in this paper will be surveyed and thoroughly analysed during and after the realization of the project.

Teaching in front of large audiences (> 700 students) is a challenge to every lecturer. Because of the rising shortage of skilled workers particularly in engineering education new ways to provide high-quality education while at the same time allowing for large audiences need to be designed. An essential way to improve engineering education is seen in the “shift from teaching to learning”, i. e from teacher-centered to student-centered education. A possible strategy of student-centered learning is “project-based learning” which facilitates action-oriented and sustainable learning. Although it is a big challenge, project-based learning can also be successfully used in large group study courses. Besides a description of central challenges when dealing with large audiences the article points out the importance of didactically innovative and student-centered forms of teaching and learning for engineering education. Furthermore, the article sketches project-based learning as a form of student-centered learning and gives a case study of the course “Communication and Organizational Development” at RWTH Aachen University.

Large classes at universities (> 1600 students) create their own challenges for teaching and learning. Audience feedback is lacking and fine tuning of lectures, courses and exam preparation to address individual needs is very difficult to achieve. At RWTH Aachen University, a course concept and a knowledge map learning tool aimed to support individual students to prepare for exams in information science through theme-based exercises were developed and evaluated. The tool was grounded in the notion of self-regulated learning with the goal of enabling students to learn independently.

Due to their low price and good quality, Stereo Vision Systems (SVS) are recently considered as a key factor to gather actual information about the object of interest. Today, automated highway systems (AHS) for urban and highway environment were developed without the use of a stereo vision system. In future, the application of AHS should be extended to unstructured environments (e.g. desert) and be adapted to heterogeneous vehicles. In this context, the stereo vision system could enable the platoon to be independent from environmental structure (e.g. lane markings) through its ability to detect, track, locate and recognize heterogeneous vehicles. So far, the need for high accuracy prevents SVS to be applied in automated heterogeneous platoon. In this paper a mechanism towards this is presented, where some behavioral properties have to be satisfied in terms of unstructured environment and heterogeneous platoons. Within a heterogeneous platoon, the back view of a preceding vehicle (BVPV) is considered as a reference point for the lateral and longitudinal control. The key idea of the proposed mechanism is to confirm that the distance of the BVPV can be extracted without depending on the movement of the preceding vehicle. Furthermore, the proposed mechanism has to ensure that features extracted from the back view are suitable to implement successfully the calibration process at around 10 m distance. With the proposed SVS mechanism some of behavioral properties have to be satisfied in terms of unstructured environment and AHS. These properties are reliability, performance and robustness. Compared to other methods which use a SVS, the proposed mechanism distinguishes itself through adapting to dynamic environment and extracting the necessary features for the calibration process.

Im Bereich von Produktionstechnologien haben Hochlohnländer wie Deutschland aufgrund ihrer intensiven Forschungs- und Entwicklungsarbeit häufig einen technologischen Vorteil im Vergleich zu Niedriglohnländern. Diesen können sie jedoch in Bezug auf einen wirtschaftlichen Erfolg nicht immer ausnutzen, da der Einfluss der geringen Produktionsfaktorkosten in Niedriglohnländern zumeist überwiegt. Der Exzellenzcluster „Integrative Produktionstechnik für Hochlohnländer“ an der RWTH Aachen University stellt sich dieser Herausforderung und erforscht nachhaltige Technologien zur Sicherstellung der zukünftigen Produktion in Hochlohnländern auf der Basis des sogenannten Polylemma der Produktionstechnik. Es wurde ein kognitives System im Bereich von Montageplanungssystemen entwickelt, das die Vorteile der Automatisierung mit der Flexibilität des Menschen verbindet. Um den Einfluss von kognitiven Systemen auf das Polylemma der Produktionstechnik zu messen, werden in diesem Beitrag vier Kennzahlen, die deren Dominanz innerhalb des magischen Dreiecks (Kosten, Zeit und Qualität) aufzeigen, präsentiert und diskutiert.

Within the ramp-up phase of highly automated assembly systems, the planning effort forms a large part of production costs. Due to shortening product lifecycles, changing customer demands and therefore an increasing number of ramp-up processes these costs even rise. So assembly systems should reduce these efforts and simultaneously be flexible for quick adaption to changes in products and their variants. A cognitive interaction system in the field of assembly planning systems is developed within the Cluster of Excellence “Integrative production technology for high-wage countries” at RWTH Aachen University which integrates several cognitive capabilities according to human cognition. This approach combines the advantages of automation with the flexibility of humans. In this paper the main principles of the system’s core component – the cognitive control unit – are presented to underline its advantages with respect to traditional assembly systems. Based on this, the actual innovation of this paper is the development of key performance indicators. These refer to the ramp-up process as a main objective of such a system is to minimize the planning effort during ramp-up. The KPIs are also designed to show the impact on the main idea of the Cluster of Excellence in resolving the so-called Polylemma of Production.

While it is always desirable in an emergency to get treatment as soon as possible, there are emergencies that need immediate treatment. In case of Sudden Cardiac Arrest an untreated time interval of only a few minutes usually means the victims’ death. Given the delay between an incoming emergency call and the arrival of the emergency medical services at the scene, it is necessary to find an alternative way to provide immediate first aid treatment. One approach for this is the implementation of a Volunteer Notification System – involving laypersons and medically trained volunteers into the emergency medical service, by notifying those potential helpers who can arrive at the scene fast enough to provide the urgently needed measures.

During a sudden cardiac arrest (SCA), an untreated time interval of only a few minutes usually means the victims’ death. While professional emergency medical services (EMS) are working on shortening the time needed for arriving on scene, there are parameters that limit potential performance increases regarding this topic; e.g. current traffic, the travel distance and the delay between an incoming emergency call and the march out of the professional helpers. Given this premise, it is necessary to find alternative ways for providing immediate first aid treatment to victims suffering SCA. One approach is the implementation of a Volunteer Notification System (VNS) – integrating laypersons and medically trained volunteers into the EMS, by notifying those potential helpers who are, at the time of incident, close to the scene. Whereas the term “close” is suitable for describing the general concept of a VNS, a social valuable system implementation requires an algorithm that analyses and determines which volunteers are to be alarmed. False or unnecessary notifications might have a negative effect on the user acceptance or system performance, whereas not alarming potential helpers who are actually close enough can greatly decrease the system’s value. While the actual distance is an important parameter to be considered, it does not necessarily determine the time of arrival at the scene. Due to possible obstacles, the beeline calculation obviously does not offer a suitable background for estimating the traveling time; but even considering up-to-date roadmap material in order to calculate the shortest way does not provide sufficient information without some assumptions. Thus, the type of movement, the physical performance of a volunteer and the traffic situation directly influence those calculations. Furthermore, limiting the relevant decision parameters to merely distance seems inadequate and secondary criteria apply; e.g. medical expertise, knowledge of the area or general engagement. In addition to giving a brief overview to the “EMuRgency” project, this paper will introduce the main criteria for determining the relevant volunteers within an ongoing emergency scenario.

A volunteer notification system (VNS) is a promising approach to integrate laypersons into emergency medical services (EMS). In case of a medical emergency, a VNS will alarm those potential helpers who can arrive on scene fast enough to provide the most urgent measures until the professional helpers arrive at the victim. Whereas the basic requirements and criteria of a VNS have been discussed in recent publications, this paper will focus on the actual volunteer selection process and the underlying concept of Prescient Profiling. By using concepts of artificial intelligence, the available data is processed in order to generate an abstract digital representation of a volunteer and further enhanced to produce individual user profiles. These profiles will enable predictions on future decisions and the identification of behavioral patterns within the pool of volunteers. The goal is to provide an efficient algorithm for determining a highly sophisticated set of relevant volunteers for an ongoing medical emergency.

In this paper, we present a hybrid approach to automatic assembly planning, where all computational intensive tasks are executed once prior to the actual assembly by an Offline Planner component. The result serves as basis of decision-making for the Online Planner component, which adapts planning to the actual situation and unforeseen events. Due to the separation into offline and online planner, this approach allows for detailed planning as well as fast computation during the assembly, therefore enabling appropriate assembly duration even in nondeterministic environments. We present simulation results of the planner and detail the resulting planner’s behavior.

Dieser Beitrag adressiert einen ersten Entwurf eines Geschäftsmodells für eine Frachtenkooperation von kleinen und mittleren Speditionsunternehmen des Straßengüterverkehrs im Bereich von Teilladungstransporten. Zunächst erfolgt eine kurze Einführung, in der die Relevanz von Frachtenkooperationsbildungen kleiner und mittlerer Speditionsunternehmen aufgezeigt wird. Im Gegensatz zum Stückgut- und Komplettladungsbereich existiert für den Transport von Teilladungen allerdings bis dato noch kein optimiertes Logistikkonzept für klein- und mittelständische Transportnetzwerke im Straßengüterverkehr. Das CloudLogistic-Szenario wird als ein geeigneter Ansatz vorgestellt, um dieser Problemstellung zu begegnen. Den Kern dieses Beitrags bildet der Geschäftsmodellentwurf für diesen Frachtenkooperationstyp mittels der Business-Model-Canvas-Methodik von Osterwalder/Pigneur, da dieser Ansatz gerade für die Eingangsphase im Rahmen von Geschäftsmodellkonzeptionen bzw. bei Geschäftsmodellinnovationen geeignet ist. Der Beitrag empfiehlt, den Entwurf des Geschäftsmodells um eine geeignete Business-Architektur, die die relevanten Geschäftsprozesse im Hinblick auf die sich anschließende Konzipierung der IT-Architektur für die optimierte Zentraldisposition beinhaltet, zu erweitern.

Exploring an unknown graph has several fields of applications such as search and rescue operations. A team of robots is used to speed up these exploration missions; provided that they synchronize and coordinate their activities. Here, several conditions may limit the communication capabilities of robots which are crucial for coordination (e.g. high temperature). Therefore, a periodic rendezvous is needed as a work around in order to overlap their communication ranges. Attending these periodic rendezvous sessions requires that robots interrupt their current exploration progress periodically and traverse back to the rendezvous points (i.e. Interruptibility). During their trips to these points, the robots cross the explored part of the graph. Thus, they do not gain new knowledge about the graph. Furthermore, it increases the required time of exploration. Evaluating the impact of these interruptions on the exploration process through several experiments under different exploration strategies is the scope of this paper.

Dependence on a team of robots to carry out the exploration missions has many benefits such as speeding up the missions; provided that the coordination among robots is maintained. Many circumstances can limit the communication, which is crucial for the coordination among robots (e.g. impenetrable barriers, high temperature etc.). A periodic rendezvous strategy is considered in this paper as a work around in order to overlap communication ranges of the robots. Attending these periodic rendezvous sessions requires that the robots interrupt their current exploration progress periodically and traverse back to the rendezvous points (i.e. Interruptibility). During their trips to these points, they do not gain new knowledge since they cross already explored parts of the area. Therefore, using rendezvous strategies improves the team behavior but has a negative impact on the time efficiency. The contribution of this paper is to mitigate this negative impact of Interruptibility on explorations while maintaining the coordination among robots. The mitigation algorithm is evaluated on several graphs and its performance is compared with other rendezvous approaches where the results are promising.

A new trend in automation is to deploy so-called cyber-physical systems (CPS) which combine computation with physical processes. In future factory automation scenarios, mobile robots will play an important role to help customizing the production process, for instance, by transporting semi-products and raw materials to the machines. Therefore it will be important to compare the performance of mobile robots in such future logistics tasks. In this paper we sketch how the novel RoboCup Logistics League with its automated referee and overhead tracking system can be developed into a standard benchmark for logistics application in factory automation scenarios.

Based on previous works this paper introduces a formal description of exclusive defined freight routes using a multi-zone approach to define source and target areas as elliptic isochrones. This work contributes to publications in context of the so-called “CloudLogistic” concept. As an innovative approach to strengthen the market position of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) and to increase their efficiency, the CloudLogistic concept aims for building a novel kind of freight cooperation in the area of Less than Truck Load (LTL) transports. The use of a multi-zone model enables the freight cooperation to maximize its efficiency, to implement innovative pricing strategies and to create individual unique selling features for each single Logistic Service Provider (LSP). By using an elliptic definition with geographical focal points for these zones a more flexible definition of source and target areas is realized. To reduce geographical impacts a time-based distance-function is used.

The presented design of the exclusiveness of freight routes by defining monopoles via so-called core-areas is a useful approach to deal between the individual requirements respectively intentions of each single LSP and the attainment of global goals of the whole collective network structure.

As a real application of the in Tummel et al. (The Multi-Depot Heterogeneous Fleet Vehicle Routing Problem With Time Windows And Assignment Restrictions (m-VRPTWAR), 2011) introduced problem class m-VRPTWAR – the “multi-depot heterogeneous fleet vehicle routing problem with time windows and assignment restrictions” – this paper will introduce the so-called “CloudLogistic” concept. The problem addresses the assignment of a set of shipments to a set of freight routes in order to minimize unused cargo volume of the vehicles. The assignment of each shipment is restricted to a subset of freight routes. Furthermore, the shipment has to be delivered in a specific time window. Therefore, it is necessary to determine an order of shipments for each freight route that guarantees the observance of all time windows. The problem class m-VRPTWAR abstracts the implied optimization problem. Besides the introduction of the “CloudLogistic” concept, the main requirements for the software-based shipment processing are discussed, which is the central part of a software-based solution for an implied freight cooperation of Less Than Truckload (LTL) shipments. For the evaluation of problem-specific solvers, as well as for an improved evaluation of the feasibility of the m-VRPTWAR, realistic test data come into place according to Tummel et al. (An Incremental Online Heuristic for Evaluating the Feasibility of the m-VRPTWAR, 2011). Besides a detailed description of the concept a method for the generation of realistic test data will be presented. Finally the evaluation of a Repacking First Fit approach (RFF) as a solution for the discussed feasibility check will be extended by considering different choices of repacking depths.

Motivated by the so-called “CloudLogistic”-concept as an innovative, line-based way for dealing with less than truck load (LTL) shipments in cooperation networks, this paper introduces a genetic algorithm as a heuristical approach for dealing with multi-objective optimization problems. Based on the implied optimization problem – the NP-hard multi-depot heterogeneous fleet vehicle routing problem with time windows and assignment restrictions (m-VRPTWAR) - four different optimization goals of the “CloudLogistic”-concept are introduced and a multi-step approach is motivated.

Therefore, two different optimization steps are presented and transferred into a genetic algorithm. Additionally, two innovative problem-specific genetic operators are introduced by combining a generation-based approach and a usage-based approach in order to create a useful mutation process. A further usage-based approach is used to realize a problem-specific crossover operator. The presented genetic multi-step approach is a useful concept for dealing with multi-objective optimization problems without the need of a single combined fitness function.

Scientific collaborations are getting more and more complex and transdisciplinary, as even demanded by many research funding sources. An example is the funding priority “Innovative capability in demographic change” initiated by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Several collaborative projects investigate different parts of an overall research problem. These transdisciplinary research networks bring together very different institutions from academia and practice leading to many heterogeneous consortia investigating complex research questions. To discover potential synergies in such research networks means of supporting (physical as well as virtual) networking and collaboration are needed. There is no need to unify the inherent heterogeneity within these collaborations, but researchers must be enabled to learn and benefit from the given diversity. To meet this challenge a variety of different methods is used to enhance learning opportunities for the funding priority in the physical and above all in the virtual world. This paper describes the efforts to support the communication and cooperation within the funding priority and beyond. These efforts especially manifest in the virtual learning and cooperation platform designed for this very purpose.

Scientific collaboration is getting more and more complex and interdisciplinary, which is even demanded by many research funding sources (Bryson, Studies for Innovation in a Modern Working Environment. International Monitoring, 2009). Good examples are the clusters of excellence supported by the German Research Foundation, consisting of many local institutions investigating a common research question from multidisciplinary perspectives. In such networks it is important to have structures that support the cooperation of researchers and the information exchange among them to reveal potential synergies and help exploiting those (Sydow, Management von Netzwerkorganisationen. Beiträge aus der „Managementforschung“, 2010). There are already a variety of tools available to assist collaboration in large businesses. However, there exists a lack of software, which is tailored to the specific needs of scientific cooperation structures. This demand is met by our Scientific Cooperation Platform (SCP). As part of the SCP the Cluster Terminologies application tackles the understanding between different scientific fields, i.e. differing terminologies. Our first goal is to capture the current state of terminologies in the cluster by gathering and visualizing information about which terms are used with what definition by whom in the cluster. This will raise awareness of where cooperation like interdisciplinary publications can lead to misunderstandings or the necessity to clarify a common terminology beforehand. The second step is to foster discussions about the terminology among the cluster members both in an informal manner as well as in specific workshops. Definitions for some terms will become clearer in this process, which can even lead to an ‘official’ cluster-wide definition. For other terms maybe at least an agreement among members from the same field can be achieved. However, for terms, which simply have significantly different meanings in different research fields, the main benefit in the SCP lies in the advanced understanding of the differing terminologies.

Large-scale research problems (e.g. health and aging, eonomics and production in high-wage countries) are typically complex, needing competencies and research input of different disciplines (Ziefle et al., E-Health, Assistive Technologies and Applications for Assisted Living: Challenges and Solutions, pp. 76–93, 2011). Hence, cooperative working in mixed teams is a common research procedure to meet multi-faceted research problems. Though, interdisciplinarity is – socially and scientifically – a challenge, not only in steering cooperation quality, but also in evaluating the interdisciplinary performance. In this paper we demonstrate how using mixed-node publication network graphs can be used in order to get insights into social structures of research groups. Explicating the published element of cooperation in a network graph reveals more than simple co-authorship graphs. The validity of the approach was tested on the 3-year publication outcome of an interdisciplinary research group. The approach was highly useful not only in demonstrating network properties like propinquity and homophily, but also in proposing a performance metric of interdisciplinarity. Furthermore we suggest applying the approach to a large research cluster as a method of self-management and enriching the graph with sociometric data to improve intelligibility of the graph.

Modern software development includes the usage of UML for (model-driven) analysis and design, customer communication etc. Since UML is a graphical notation, alternative forms of representation are needed to avoid barriers for developers and other users with low vision. Here, human-usable textual notation (HUTN) is tested and evaluated in a user interface modeling concept to provide accessible model-driven software design.

Existing accessibility guidelines are mainly focused on runtime behavior and do not provide recommendations and evaluation for conceptual design of Web applications. Our approach aims to support more abstract principles for analysis and design of accessible Web applications. Combined with a prototype evaluation, it provides early integration of accessibility requirements into the process of Web application development.

The approach is based on a model-driven user interface design method. Analysis of tasks and workflow is used to design a prototype which is evaluated with a simple screening technique to get fast and efficient results on selected accessibility requirements.

The longtime objective of this work is a general concept for software development which bridges the gap between user requirements and developers needs in the field of accessibility.

Edges are crucial features for object segmentation and classification in both image and point cloud processing. Though many research efforts have been made in edge extraction and enhancement in both areas, their applications are limited respectively owing to their own technical properties. This paper presents a new approach to integrating the edge pixels in the 2D image into boundary data in the 3D point cloud by establishing the mapping relationship between these two types of data to represent the 3D edge features of the object. The 3D edge extraction – based on the adoption of Microsoft Kinect as a 3D sensor - involves the following three steps: first, the generation of a range image from the point cloud of the object, second the edge extraction in the range image and edge extraction in the digital image, and finally edge data integration by referring to the correspondence map between point cloud data and image pixels.

Edges provide important visual information by corresponding to discontinuities in the physical, photometrical and geometrical properties of scene objects, such as significant variations in the reflectance, illumination, orientation and depth of scene surfaces. The significance has drawn many people to work on the detection and extraction of edge features. The characteristics of 3D point clouds and 2D digital images are thought to be complementary, so the combined interpretation of objects with point clouds and image data is a promising approach to describe an object in computer vision area. However, the prerequisite for different levels of integrated data interpretation is the geometric referencing between the 3D point cloud and 2D image data, and a precondition for geometric referencing lies in the extraction of the corresponding features.

Addressing the wide-ranged applications of edge detection in object recognition, image segmentation and pose identification, this paper presents a novel approach to extract 3D edges. The main idea is combining the edge data from a point cloud of an object and its corresponding digital images. Our approach is aimed to make use of the advantages of both edge processing and analysis of point clouds and image processing to represent the edge characteristics in 3D with increased accuracy.

On the 2D image processing part, an edge extraction is applied on the image by using the Canny edge detection algorithm after the raw image data pre-processing. An easily-operating pixel data mapping mechanism is proposed in our work for corresponding 2D image pixels with 3D point cloud pixels. By referring to the correspondence map, 2D edge data are merged into 3D point cloud. On the point cloud part, the border extracting operator is performed on the range image. As a preparation work, the raw point cloud data are used to generate a range image. Edge points in the range image, points with range, are converted to 3D point type with the application of the point cloud library (PCL) to define the edges in the 3D point cloud.

Compared to current industry standards future production systems will be more flexible and robust and will adapt to unforeseen states and events. Industrial robots will interact with each other as well as with human coworkers. To be able to act in such a dynamic environment, each acting entity ideally needs complete knowledge of its surroundings, concerning working materials as well as other working entities. Therefore new monitoring methods providing complete coverage for complex and changing working areas are needed. While single 3D sensors already provide detailed information within their field of view, complete coverage of a complete work area can only be achieved by relying on a multitude of these sensors. However, to provide useful information all data of each sensor must be aligned to each other and fused into an overall world picture. To be able to align the data correctly, the position and orientation of each sensor must be known with sufficient exactness. In a quickly changing dynamic environment, the positions of sensors are not fixed, but must be adjusted to maintain optimal coverage. Therefore, the sensors need to autonomously align themselves in real-time. This can be achieved by adding defined markers with given geometrical patterns to the environment which can be used for calibration and localization of each sensor. As soon as two sensors detect the same marker, their relative position to each other can be calculated. Additional anchor markers at fixed positions serve as global reference points for the base coordinate system.

In this paper we present a prototype for a self-aligning monitoring system based on ROS and Microsoft Kinects. This system is capable of autonomously real-time calibrating itself relatively and in respect to a global coordinate system as well as to detect and track defined objects within the working area.

The concept of value creation is essential for the analysis of human decision-making. Basically, whatever we do is based on subconscious decision processes, which are based on available information. If there are inadequate or insufficient information it is hard to decide what to do and a mandatory decision is mostly more a game of luck. Based on a cybernetic structural model of value creation a methodology is proposed to overcome the problem of insufficient information in a decision process. The approach is motivated by the problem of identifying the value proposition of Enterprise IT in order to make an investment decision.

Visualizations in general serve as a decent means to support human communication and inter-disciplinary discussions. In simulations, they are a mandatory component for an efficient and purposeful analysis, in particular. This is the case, because generic computational methods can rarely exploit or detect the simulated phenomena, automatically. Even if so in rare occasions, a visual representation of the analysis results is desirable and necessary for the analyst. Thus, in general, each simulation tool has manifold possibilities to visualize the simulation results and to support the data exploration process.

When using linked tools to simulate the material behavior within manufacturing processes, the exploration process comprises several disciplines and domain experts. Hence, a visualization has to, on the one hand, consider the type of visualization typical for the specific domain as well as, on the other hand, form a contiguous comprehensive representation of the material’s state during each time step of the modeled process. This does not only involve multiple scales, but also different temporal and spatial resolutions as well as different kinds of data. This raises several questions that common visualizations do not address. Within this chapter, we give answers regarding questions like “how to handle such process data in visualization” or “how to use such integrated visualizations”.

Production companies in high-wage countries face growing complexity in their production conditions due to increasing variance and shorter product lifecycles. Solutions that provide an integrated view of the planning processes are needed to achieve increasing production quality and efficiency. One approach for managing this complexity is the use of simulation applications to design digital models. Using the approach of “Virtual Production”, e.g. factory planning scenarios can be evaluated in advance by simulation. A new integrative concept called Virtual Production Intelligence (VPI) has been developed that applies solutions of different intelligence approaches to the field of virtual production by means of integration and analysis of data aggregated along the simulated processes. In this paper, performance indicators are presented for monitoring factory planning processes using the VPI approach. Hence, critical stages can be simulated in advance to support factory planning projects.

The increasing complexity of products and consumer interests is facing more and more challenges to production planning. An innovative approach, which facilitates efficient planning, is represented by a model-based approach using the concept of the Digital Factory. In order to realize the vision of virtual production, modular solutions like simulations or optimization tools are merged into a holistic model that provides a digital mapping of the entire production process. In this work, a framework is described, which is capable to integrate planning modules by using an integrative information model. Based on intelligence approaches, multiple data is linked to reach a vertical integration of the information flow. These cross-linked data structures facilitate a consolidation of data from different levels of the production monitoring and management layers. The provided information is used to establish decision support systems, which enable an entirely holistic factory planning. The advantages of the approach are demonstrated by a process chain formation use case.

Die zunehmende Komplexität von Produktionsprozessen stellt immer neue Herausforderungen an die Produktentwicklung. Ein innovativer Ansatz im Sinne einer effizienteren Entwicklung besteht in der Virtualisierung der Planung. Das Konzept der „Digitalen Fabrik“ ermöglicht hierbei eine frühe Beurteilung des Planungserfolgs. Durch Integrationsverfahren können so verschiedenste Simulationsverfahren zu einer Wertschöpfungskette zusammengefasst werden. Im Rahmen der vorliegenden Arbeit wird ein Framework vorgestellt, das die Integration von Daten sowohl aus Simulationen als auch aus der operationalen Ebene auf Basis cyber-physischer Monitoring-Systeme in ein integratives Datenmodell ermöglicht. Die ganzheitliche Abbildung des Produktionsprozesses ermöglicht eine Evaluation des Planungserfolgs bereits in frühen Stadien der Planung. Hierauf basierend können – in Anlehnung an das Konzept der Business Intelligence – Werkzeuge realisiert werden, die den Fabrikplaner bei der fundierten Identifikation von Optimierungspotentialen unterstützen. Der hiermit verbundene Vorteil für den ganzheitlichen Produktionsplanungsprozess wird auf Basis einer Layoutplanung in Verbindung mit einer Prozesskettenoptimierung aufgezeigt.

Due to the continuously and fast increasing complexity of products and production processes, manufacturing companies have to face more and more challenges in order to survive on a competitive market. Thus, in modern planning scenarios of the manufacturing process, the goal is not only to achieve the most efficient low-cost production, but also to take into account the interests of the customer. Especially the increasing impact of the customer on the market leads to rapidly changing boundary conditions and thus different requirements concerning the production process. As a consequence, the production has to be designed more flexible and adaptive to changing circumstances. In order to reach the desired flexibility, the production as well as the communication management within the factory has to be designed on the basis of a modular planning approach. This requires vertical exchange of information through all levels of the company, from the management layers and the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) to the automation and shop floor layers, where the aggregated information is needed to optimize the production. The interconnection of these corporate layers can only be achieved through the use of an information model that serves interoperability between these mostly heterogeneous systems. The processing and visualization of ERP data using an integrative information model enables a continuous optimization of the production systematics. Through the information model, cross-linked data structures of the production monitoring and automation can be connected and thus be integrated and consolidated into a consistent data basis. In the current work, such an information model will be introduced and validated by making use of an optimization algorithm that is carried out through the layout planning phase of a factory. The use-case scenario presented aims for serving a flexible and dynamic optimization of the production structure of a manufacturing enterprise. During the optimization, the algorithm takes into account historical data taken from the ERP level of the company as well as time constraints to design multi-dimensional process chains for multiple manufacturing scenarios.

The increasing complexity of products creates new challenges in production planning. Hence, the methodology of process development has to be designed valuable. An innovative approach to reach efficient planning consists in the virtualization of planning processes. The concept of the “Digital Factory” enables a preliminary evaluation of the planning success. In the present work, a framework is presented, which allows for the integration of dedicated applications into an integrative data model to gain a holistic mapping of the production. Using Intelligence approaches, data can be analyzed to provide decision support and optimization potentials. The advantages involved are demonstrated by a production structure planning approach in connection with a process chain optimization.

In order to facilitate the improvement in product quality and production efficiency, many companies use simulation applications. In turn, they face the challenge of making these applications interoperable. Once the interoperability is established, the challenges of understanding and improving the processes arise. They can be overcome by modeling and analyzing the processes in question. This paper presents a use case scenario from laser cutting. A new concept is introduced addressing the challenges aforementioned. It conforms to the principles of the integration and examination of data and combines virtual production with the goal of gaining knowledge through the analysis of simulated processes.

The usage of simulation applications for the planning and the designing of processes in many fields of production technology facilitated the formation of large data pools. With the help of these data pools, the simulated processes can be analyzed with regard to different objective criteria. The considered use cases have their origin in questions arising in various fields of production technology, e.g. manufacturing procedures to the logistics of production plants.

The deployed simulation applications commonly focus on the object of investigation. However, simulating and analyzing a process necessitates the usage of various applications, which requires the interchange of data between these applications. The problem of data interchange can be solved by using either a uniform data format or an integration system. Both of these approaches have in common that they store the data, which are interchanged between the deployed applications. The data’s storage is necessary with regard to their analysis, which, in turn, is required to obtain an added value of the interchange of data between various applications that is e.g. the determining of optimization potentials. The examination of material flows within a production plant might serve as an example of analyzing gathered data from an appropriate simulated process to determine, for instance, bottle necks in these material flows.

The efforts undertaken to support such analysis tools for simulated processes within the field of production engineering are still at the initial stage. A new and contrasting way of implementing the analyses aforementioned consists in focusing on concepts and methods belonging to the subject area of Business Intelligence, which address the gathering of information taken from company processes in order to gain knowledge about these.

This paper focusses on the approach mentioned above. With the help of a concrete use case taken from the field of factory planning, requirements on a data-based support for the analysis of the considered planning process are formulated. In a further step, a design for the realization of these requirements is presented. Furthermore, expected challenges are pointed out and discussed.

Die virtuelle Produktion soll einen Beitrag leisten, dass in Hochlohnländern produzierende Industrien weiterhin Konkurrenzfähig sind und sogar Ihren Entwicklungsvorsprung in Hochtechnologien halten und ausbauen können. Um die virtuelle Produktion in diesem Kontext effektiv einsetzen zu können, muss eine Basis geschaffen werden, die eine ganzheitliche, integrative Betrachtung der eingesetzten IT-Werkzeuge im Prozess ermöglicht. Ziel einer solchen Betrachtung soll die Steigerung von Produktqualität, Produktionseffizienz und -leistung sein. In diesem Beitrag wird ein integratives Konzept vorgestellt, das durch die Integration, die Analyse und die Visualisierung von Daten, die entlang simulierter Prozesse innerhalb der Produktionstechnik erzeugt werden, einen Basisbaustein zur Erreichung des Ziels der virtuellen Produktion darstellt. Unter Berücksichtigung der Anwendungsdomäne Produktionstechnik und der eingesetzten kontextsensitiven Informationsanalyse mit der Aufgabe den Erkenntnisgewinn der untersuchten Prozesse zu erhöhen, wird dieses Konzept als Virtual Production Intelligence bezeichnet.