This STAR interview features Sebastian Thiede of the Faculty of Engineering Technology. STAR stands for (S)ituation, (T)asks, (A)ctions, and (R)esults. Many stars in the UT organisation have interesting stories to tell. Sebastian Thiede is interested in innovative solutions for the planning and operations of manufacturing systems and factories of the future.
Situation
What is the situation (S) outline (at the moment) of your research?
The manufacturing industry is a key sector, but nowadays, it faces a significant transition that is connected to several challenges. The global economy as well as competition is changing. It puts pressure on the manufacturing sector, with strong cost pressure and high demand for product and volume flexibility combined with the need for innovation and a lack of a skilled workforce. The last years also underlined the demand for more resilient supply chains to ensure access to raw materials, energy, and crucial components. The manufacturing industry is also highly relevant in the context of global environmental impacts, e.g. climate change. Last but not least this is accompanied by challenging demographics with increasing age of the workforce in combination with new qualification profiles as well as necessary lifelong learning. Digitalisation offers promising opportunities to address those challenges but also leads to further questions to be addressed to foster a successful transition.
Tasks
What tasks (T) are currently involved?
Both education and meaningful research are necessary to tackle those challenges. Future-oriented high-tech application domains like energy, semicon, or biomed ask for innovative scalable, and flexible production concepts and technologies. Digitalization – often coined as Industry 4.0 or Smart Industry - is an important pathway towards new solutions in that context. But the last years underlined the necessity towards “Industry 5.0” to acknowledge the importance of environmental impacts, resilient manufacturing as well as the role of humans in manufacturing. And of course, both the necessary fundamentals as well as new aspects need to be continuously transferred to the current and future workforce. With accelerating technology change the aspect of lifelong learning is even more important nowadays.
Actions
What actions (A) are you working on and who are involved?
We´re developing innovative solutions for the planning and operation of manufacturing systems and whole factories. Besides technological developments, digital methods and tools play an important role. Activities addressing diverse application domains such as energy (battery, hydrogen), mechanical and mechatronic products, biomed, automotive, or semicon industry. We pursue a multi-dimensional approach taking technical and economic performance but also environmental and social perspectives into account. This also requires a systematic and interdisciplinary view of manufacturing which addresses the interdependencies of various processes, technical equipment, buildings, people, and digitalization in manufacturing settings. Additionally, we´re aiming at solutions with broad transferability not only for big but also small and medium-sized companies. Both innovation and broad applicability are important leverages to create an impact on society.
All those aspects are also directly reflected in our educational activities. I think research and education have to go hand in hand anyway. With our Learning Factory, we built up infrastructure that allows students to experience and learn about the latest production technologies in a realistic context. Related to that we´re also developing new educational and training concepts with industrial applicability.
Results
What results (R) do you hope to achieve and how will society perceive them?
We´re active in various project activities, most of them in close interaction with industrial companies. We deal with the latest technologies, methods, and tools for example in the area of sensoring, factory simulation, robotics, or artificial intelligence. Digital twins allow for an improved design and operation of production processes and systems. Current examples are dealing with adaptive workstations and assistance systems that better reflect the individual ergonomic situation of workers and lead to improved occupational health and safety. We also develop innovative and interdisciplinary digital tools for the design and operation of factories which are broadly transferable and easy to implement – with that economic as well environmental objectives can be considered in an integrated manner. Fostering circularity in factories is an important direction as well, for example in the context of disassembly processes.
We´re continuously embedding those topics into the educational curriculum of UT and already created new courses to reflect that. The mentioned Learning Factory is an important puzzle piece in this context. Even more, the new mechanical engineering master specialization “Smart and sustainably industry” brings those topics together.
