Felix Klenk, M.Sc.

Die Kreislaufwirtschaft zielt darauf ab, Produkte mehrfach wertschöpfend dem Produkt- und Produktionslebenszyklus zuzuführen, um den Ressourcenverbrauch zu reduzieren und die Wirtschaftlichkeit zu erhöhen. Der vorliegende Beitrag präsentiert, basierend auf einer Definition der Kreislaufwirtschaft und ihrer Konzepte, die aktuelle industrielle Praxis zur erfolgreichen Umsetzung und die damit einhergehenden Potenziale. Anschließend werden bestehende technische Herausforderungen der Kreislaufwirtschaft mit Fokus auf strategische Herausforderungen und "Closing-the-Loop"-Ansätze analysiert. Der Beitrag soll Entscheidungsträger dabei unterstützen, die Vorteile der Kreislaufwirtschaft zu erkennen und Herausforderungen für eine erfolgreiche Einführung bereits früh anzugehen.

Die Kreislaufwirtschaft zielt darauf ab, den aktuellen „take, make & dispose“-Ansatz der linearen Wirtschaft, der Auslöser massiver Ressourcenverschwendung ist, durch die mehrfache, wertschöpfende Zufuhr von Produkten in den Produktionsprozess zu verändern. Hierdurch kann der Ressourcen- und Energieverbrauch reduziert sowie die Wirtschaftlichkeit der Unternehmen erhöht werden. Eine Voraussetzung für die Implementierung der Kreislaufwirtschaft ist die lückenlose Nachverfolgbarkeit von Produkten, Komponenten und Materialien. So wird ermöglicht, dass Produkte, die am Ende ihres Lebenszyklus wieder in den Besitz eines Unternehmens gelangen, leichter identifiziert, aufgearbeitet und weiterverwendet werden können. Der vorliegende Artikel zielt darauf ab, eine Übersicht aktueller Track & Trace-Technologien zu geben und die Möglichkeiten aufzuzeigen, wie mittels einer zentralen Austauschplattform ein Mehrwert aus Daten generiert werden kann.

Due to excess of resource consumption, circular economy (CE) aims to return products to the production life cycle in an economically and ecologically reasonable way. Yet, few approaches focus on the strategic and network level of CE. First, existing approaches regarding the configuration of CE networks and the development of appropriate business models are reviewed. Sec- ond, an approach on how to integrate both aspects is presented. By integrating these aspects, implemen- tation strategies for CE in global production networks shall be developed facilitating strategic decisions. The approach is planned to be demonstrated in a German company supplying the automotive sector.

Die Kreislaufwirtschaft als Konzept zur nachhaltigen Produktion weist eine stetig steigende Relevanz auf. Gleichzeitig stellt deren Umsetzung für Unternehmen häufig eine große Herausforderung dar und erfordert branchen- und produktspezifische Lösungen. Ziel dieses Beitrags ist die Schaffung eines Rahmenmodells für Anforderungen und Charakteristika einer kreislauffähigen Produktion, sowie die Analyse von Konzepten, welche einen Wandel zu zirkulären Geschäftsprozessen ermöglichen.

The circular economy aims to reduce the consumption of resources and energy by exploiting multiple use-cycles of components and materials. The creation of new circular businesses hinges on efficient alignment between market demands of circular products with the supply of End-of-life components and materials. In this paper, we address the digitization of a matchmaking tool for the circular economy by defining demand-supply matching (DSM) in context of business link identification and cross-sectorial matchmaking. We further specify a DSM process and p resent our DSM tool, which facilitates publication and search for supplier offerings and demander needs, selection of auctioning candidates, and digitized auctioning and contract definition. By that, this tool supports the alignment of market demands with matching supply offerings. In particular, it combines the steps of publishing, searching, selecting, auctioning and contract definition into one tool, which we argue can make matchmaking more efficient compared to addressing these steps separately. Finally, we present the design of the tool and discuss its merits in light of the needed acceptance for automating business link identification and contractual interactions.

Given today's demand shift for product variants triggered by different market segments, manufacturing companies are facing high degrees of complexity, when utilising their global production networks. To remain competitive, companies need to prepare proactively for increasing demand dynamics by using the adaptability of their production network and planning their product allocation to production network entities comprehensively. In this paper, a mixed-integer linear program (MILP) is proposed for the integrated product variant allocation and configuration adaption of global production networks. Further improvement potential for the optimal solution is identified and evaluated by means of post-optimality analysis, i.e. an analysis of shadow prices and slack variables is conducted. This approach contributes towards decision-making in the context of strategic production network design. Its application may reduce the risk of disadvantages decisions and supports the identification of further improvement measures in complex decision-making problems while improving decision transparency. The approach is applied at a global production network for final assembly in the aeronautics industry.

Enforced by continuously expanding production structures and production programs, original equipment manufacturers have faced an increasing complexity when dealing with product allocation decisions in recent years. Fluctuations in demand and other key omponents of the production network require adaptable and well-structured production mechanisms to maintain and enhance global competitiveness. Questions of where and when to produce certain products have risen in priority, especially in the context of lobally operating production networks, due to extended factor costs and global market dynamics. Therefore, it is essential for manufacturers to further optimize and reconfigure their production networks as historically grown networks or isolated allocation decisions have led to efficiency losses. The problems of product allocation and network configuration are highly interdependent and hence need to be taken into account in an integrated manner when making decisions. This chapter proposes several approaches that particularly focus on product allocation decisions, whereas some integrated approaches also regard configurational aspects. The presented decision support methods in this chapter range from simpler tools that help comparing the most promising allocation and reconfiguration decisions (such as the portfolio approach) to more complex and elaborate methods that aim to provide an optimal solution for product allocation (e.g., mathematical optimization).