Smart & data driven Executive Search for Industry 4.0

Operating procurement is being increasingly digitalized. The future purchase portfolio will tend to small series production and product individualization, highlighting the trend towards batch sizes of one. Purchasing managers will see their role turn into Product Developer and Data Analysts. Smart Contacts, Predictive Analysis as well as Real-time availability represent huge potential in productivity gains.

Research and Development becomes more and more agile. Trends in technology like modularization, integrated platforms as well as the convergence of mechanics, electronic engineering and software are challenging R&D experts. Companies need to integrate solutions as open innovation, cloud-based technologies and Design of Experiments altogether with simulations and rapid prototypes to boost efficiency in R&D.

Collaborative software, augmented reality and online product configurators lead to intelligent construction in all make to order areas.

Today, Production and SCM face new opportunities with innovative analytical possibilities. Barcodes, QR-Codes and RFID-Chips allow a growing visualization of the whole supply chain. The entire production process finds himself connected to suppliers and shipping companies in a framework of adaptive logistics, which ensures a smart self-regulated production process.

The smart use of customer-related data within the Customer Journey sets new benchmarks in the sales sector. Quick and well-adapted offerings need to be made. Therefore, cross-linking Marketing and Sales contributes to major company growth. Moreover, customer-friendly apps provide a sound basis ensuring reasonably fulfilling of service requests.

Industry 4.0 relies on automation technology. Self-optimization, self- diagnosis and self-configuration help the company to use properly the available resources to reduce production cost and accelerate projects. Creating and designing interfaces for human-machine systems demands, besides technical expertise, also a deep understanding of the tasks and their environment.

Over the last years, Advanced Manufacturing counted for the embedding of CAD, CAE, CAM as well as innovative technologies and new materials. Today, the nature of the processing within new manufacturing technologies reshapes production systems in terms of cost per unit and product quality. Companies have to fully integrate these cutting-edge technologies to ensure ongoing success.

The digital factory is a generic term for a comprehensive network of digital models, methods and tools in the manufacturing industry including planning, simulating and operating entire production systems. This increases the productivity and companies selling complex goods can reduce the time- to-market and the production costs.

The automated communication between machines offers new levels of integration, streamlining workflow and increasing productivity. Therefore, companies need managers with an interdisciplinary understanding of hardware components, wireless services and applications.

In today’s highly competitive marketplace, it’s imperative for businesses to innovate new ways to streamline their supply chain and optimize productivity. Motion and position sensors improve and simplify the supply chain management, which enables companies to operate more efficiently.

Product lifecycle management is the management of the whole lifecycle of a product from the original conception, through engineering design to the final disposal for clients. This “advanced SCM” tends to be very complex and can be improved with new technologies and the right experts. Large companies work with LC since a few years. However, more and more small and medium-sized businesses try to adapt their production to the dynamic change.

Linking sensors and data analytics leads to predictive maintenance techniques, which are designed to predict when equipment breakdown might occur and hence maintenance should be performed. The appropriate selection of data sources and the interpretation of the processes leads to cost savings over routine or time-based preventive maintenance, because service tasks are performed only when warranted.