Process Automation in a Medium-Sized Mechanical Engineering Company. Development of a Systematic Approach for the Identification of Potentials

Master's Thesis from the year 2020 in the subject Engineering - Industrial Engineering and Management, grade: 1,3, University of South Wales, language: English, abstract: In this thesis, a transferable concept is developed to identify possible automation potentials in existing processes in small and medium-sized enterprises, taking into account the following research questions: How does the existing process of machine labeling work? What are the weak points of the current process of machine labeling? How can possible weaknesses be eliminated and, in the best case, automated? Can the developed concept be transferred to other processes? This in turn raises the central research question of the scientific paper: How can a structured procedure for the identification of optimization potentials as a basis for process automation look like and what has to be considered when applying it?To answer these research questions, existing concepts in the relevant literature are examined with regard to their advantages and disadvantages for the planned application. From this, a procedure divided into three main steps is developed, which offers different methodologies for the steps to be worked on. The process to be investigated and the desired primary goal of automation determine which of the methods should be used. Subsequently, the practical suitability of the developed concept is tested on the given example process of machine labeling of a medium-sized mechanical engineering company. The results of the exemplary application show that it is possible to develop a clearly structured and easy to handle concept for a medium-sized company, which recognizes the weak points and optimization potentials.