
Detlef GerhardRuhr-Universität Bochum | RUB · Department of Mechanical Engineering
Detlef Gerhard
Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing.
About
80
Publications
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Introduction
The focus of our work in research and teaching is the design of integrated engineering process chains for modelling and simulation of complex technical systems. This includes cross-process information management in industrial application environments. In our research activities, emphasis is put on new methods and models for managing and integrating product related data and processes along the entire product lifecycle. Furthermore, we develop new forms of interaction with Mixed Reality tools.
Additional affiliations
Education
February 1995 - July 2000
October 1988 - January 1995
Publications
Publications (80)
Digital twin for the automated production of precast concrete elements. Using precast concrete elements in construction has many advantages, such as cost and planning reliability, precision, and efficiency. In most cases, the production of precast concrete elements is not fully automated. There are many manual work steps that prevent a further incr...
Modularized construction with precast concrete elements has many advantages, such as shorter construction times, higher quality, flexibility, and lower costs. These advantages are mainly due to its potential for prefabrication and series production. However, the production processes are still craftsmanship, and automation rarely occurs. Fundamental...
Fractionating columns are used for most of all technical distillation processes. The fundamental understanding of the principles of these critical components is often only provided in theory or in small-scaled laboratory setups.
Building Information Modeling (BIM) is increasingly used throughout the construction industry as a crucial tool for project management. In order to use BIM throughout the entire life cycle of a building, aspects of production, maintenance and renovation of the structure must not be neglected, especially if the share of industrial prefabrication wit...
Mit dem Fortschreiten der Digitalisierung in der Industrie findet sich Augmented Reality (AR) in immer mehr Einsatzbereichen. Dennoch bleibt die industrielle Verbreitung trotz sich stetig entwickelnder Technik hinter den Prognosen zurück. Es existieren bereits Arbeiten, die sich mit der Klassifizierung von AR jedoch mit Fokus auf die tatsächliche I...
Machine learning methods are considered a promising approach for improving operations and processes in manufacturing. However, the application of machine learning often requires the expertise of a data scientist combined with thorough knowledge of the manufacturing processes. Small and medium-sized companies that specialize in certain high value-ad...
The current change of traditional products towards intelligent, connected cyber-physical systems (CPS) increases the amount of heterogenous data and models generated throughout the products’ life cycle stages, starting from their development and reaching as far as reconfigurations in the product use phase. As CPS are highly modular and often custom...
Based on the knowledge gained from mechanical engineering and research activities in the context of Industry 4.0, innovative, modular building construction approaches based on flow production methods must be based on a real-time life-cycle-oriented management of information about products, production processes and created systems. To enable rapid,...
The paper at hand aims to help educators to grasp the potential and difficulties related to virtual reality hardware and software development kits when freshly starting off in the mixed reality realm. Therefore, it will present and compare major VR hardware devices and SDK’s potentials while considering individual features and advantages. As a comm...
Kurzfassung
Innovative adaptive modulare Bauweisen von Betonfertigteilen aus Hochleistungswerkstoffen mit Fließfertigungsverfahren erfordern eine Echtzeit-Vernetzung von Produkten, Prozessen und Systemen auf der Basis konsistenter Daten. Ausgehend von den Erkenntnissen im Bereich Maschinenbau und den Forschungsaktivitäten im Rahmen von Industrie 4....
Variant rich production of individualized products and customer solutions results in new challenges for all involved industrial information systems in a producing company. To keep pace with the new requirements of a volatile future market and to exploit benefits of flexible digital production environments, it is crucial to adapt integration concept...
The radical shift from traditional products towards intelligent, connected cyber-physical Systems (CPS) leads to a growing accumulation of physical products with large amounts of directly related digital contents. A core challenge of research associated with Industrie 4.0 and CPS is to bridge the gap between the physical and digital world. Virtual...
With products reaching the whole world and being sold by thousands or millions the responsibility of designers has never been higher. A design mistake can cause - among others - physical damages, high costs or pollution of diverse types. Each mistake has consequences, whether before or after sale to various actors (manufacturing company, users, rec...
The availability of precise sensors and the extensive usage of smart devices enable the development of systems that can sense their environment and recognize specific contexts. In recent years, so-called context-aware systems gained increasing popularity as they can provide situational assistance and automate nondeterministic processes. Despite the...
New developments in domains like mathematics and statistical learning and availability of easy-to-use, often freely accessible software tools offer great potential to transform the manufacturing domain and their grasp on the increased manufacturing data repositories sustainably. One of the most exciting developments is in the area of machine learni...
Ein Essay über die Entwicklung der Rechnerunterstützung in der Produktentwicklung
This paper motivates the employment of a cognitive headgear in the context of two concrete human-in-the-loop industrial use cases. However, the distinct design and implementation of such a headgear is strongly task-dependent and no one-fits-all solution exists. To overcome that, a computer-aided design process is proposed that allows the design of...
This work describes the research activities performed in the field of engineering education at Austrian Federal Colleges of Engineering (HTL) in collaboration with both Graz and Vienna Universities of Technology. To support the collaboration process in engineering education, a Product Data Management (PDM) system was introduced to several Austrian...
Driven by present megatrends like digitization and demographic change, Learning Factories all over the world are gaining recognition in science, industry and society. In these collaborative learning environments, students and interested trainees from industry acquire methodological, social and personal competencies for future challenges in producti...
The proliferation of 3D technology on many different platforms has made CAD data exchange vital to industrial engineering innovation. The need to share and integrate CAD data, information, and knowledge amongst systems involved in product development has become an important requirement. This requirement is largely determined by a proper communicati...
Die wichtigsten Erfolgsfaktoren eines Unternehmens sind engagierte Mitarbeiter und die Anwendung von Wissen
Migration Der breite Einsatz von CAx-Anwendungen in Produktentwicklung und Produktion (vergleiche Abb. 2.1) gehört bei Unternehmen unterschiedlichster Branchen sowie deren Kunden und Zulieferer und bei dienstleistenden Ingenieurbüros seit vielen Jahren zur Normalität, denn ohne solche (vernetzte) Anwendungen wäre eine effiziente Produktentwicklung...
Die einzelnen Funktionen von CAx-Systemen sind nur dann sinnvoll zu nutzen, wenn diese zweckmäßig miteinander arbeiten können und ein Datenaustausch zwischen ihnen stattfinden kann. Daher beschreibt dieses Kapitel die übergreifende Informationsverarbeitung und die Integration dieser verschiedenen Erzeugersysteme
Dieses Kapitel gibt einen Einblick in die Modellierungs- und Anwendungsmöglichkeiten von Mehrkörpersystemen (MKS, bzw. im Englischen Multibody Systems, abgekürzt MBS) geben, mit denen ein breites Spektrum an Fragestellungen zum dynamischen Verhalten von Maschinen, Anlagen, Fahrzeugen, Robotern, Satelliten, biologischen Strukturen (Biomechanik) usw....
Das Zusammenspiel von Geräten und Programmen, die ein in sich geschlossenes, geordnetes und gegliedertes Ganzes bilden, wobei die einzelnen Bestandteile untereinander abhängig sind bzw. ineinandergreifen, wird als System
Die zusammenfassende Bezeichnung aller Systeme der Rechnerunterstützung in einem Unternehmen lautet CAx-Systeme. Dabei steht „CA“ für „Computer-Aided“, also „rechnerunterstützt“
Bevor ein Produkt eingesetzt werden kann, muss es beschafft und gegebenenfalls eingeführt werden. Die Wirtschaftlichkeit W eines solchen Einsatzes wird allgemein definiert als der Quotient von Output (Ergebnis des Einsatzes des Produkts) zu Input (Aufwand für Beschaffung und Einsatz).
Im Rahmen dieses Kapitels werden die wichtigsten Grundlagen der Finite-Elemente- Methode (FEM) vorgestellt und Hinweise für praktische Anwendungen von FEM-Systemen gegeben.
Neben Natur und Gesellschaft bildet die Technik in diesem Jahrhundert das wesentliche Umfeld der Menschen. Dabei haben Ingenieure und speziell Produktentwickler grundlegend zur Entwicklung der Technik beigetragen, die dem Menschen heute als nahezu unüberschaubare Vielfalt unterschiedlichster technischer Produkte und Systeme zur Umsetzung von Materi...
Zusätzlich zu den in den vorhergehenden Kapiteln ausführlich behandelten Methoden wird im Folgenden eine kurze Übersicht über weitere ausgewählte CAx- Methoden und CAx-Systeme gegeben, die im Maschinenbau und angrenzenden Gebieten von Bedeutung sind (wie Strömungsmechanik, Hydraulik, Elektrotechnik und Elektronik sowie Mechatronik).
In diesem Kapitel werden die im Rahmen der Produktentstehung notwendigen Planungsfunktionen
Optimieren ist für ein Produkt oder ein Bauteil die Suche nach und das Finden der bestmöglichen Lösung
Bei der Anwendung von CAx-Systeme wird rechnerintern eine Fülle verschiedenster Modelle verwendet, die sich auf unterschiedliche Modellvorstellungen und Modellierungskonzepte stützen und damit zu den wichtigsten Fundamenten von CAx-Systemen gehören. Den Grundlagen der Modellbildung kommt daher gerade im Zusammenhang mit CAx-Systemen eine besonders...
Wichtige Aufgaben im Zuge des Produktentstehungsprozesses bestehen darin, durch Modelle bestimmte Fragen, insbesondere zur Absicherung der Eigenschaften neuer Produkte, zu beantworten. Dazu steht heute eine breite Palette an CAx-Systemen und –Anwendungen zur Verfügung. Zu ihnen gehören unter anderen Systeme und Anwendungen für CAD, CAE, CAM, CAP, C...
Collaboration in general but especially between students of Austrian Federal Secondary Colleges of Engineering (HTL) is becoming more and more important. Therefore, the joint diploma thesis has been introduced into the curriculum. Furthermore, joint student projects have become a crucial topic within the subject of mechanical engineering design. Be...
Dieses nun in der dritten Auflage erschienene Buch vermittelt die Grundlagen des systematischen Einsatzes von rechnerunterstützten Methoden, Vorgehensweisen und Werkzeugen in der Produktentstehung. Es bietet seinen Zielgruppen in knapper und übersichtlicher Form das Rüstzeug für die erfolgreiche Anwendung von CAx-Systemen. Vorgehensweisen und Beisp...
Context-awareness is becoming increasingly important as it allows to adapt the functionalities and user interfaces of applications based on environmental conditions or user preferences. While contextual adaption already plays a significant role in areas like mobile consumer applications (B2C market), the industrial domain still lacks a proper discu...
The continuously growing integration of mechanics, electronics, and informatics into modern products introduces a considerable complexity into product development activities. Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) methods are one approach to handle this complexity. Eco-design methods, which are also increasingly important due to sustainability focu...
Collaboration in general but especially between students of Austrian Federal Secondary Colleges of Engineering (HTL) is becoming more and more important. Therefore, the joint diploma thesis has been introduced into the cur- riculum. Furthermore, joint student projects have become a crucial topic within the subject of mechanical engineering design....
In 2007, a research partnership program between Austrian schools and universities called "Sparkling Science" was founded by the Austrian federal ministry of Science, Research and Economy (Birke, 2013). The main objective has been to bring science and schools together, in particular, to increase interest for STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engin...
The Internet of Things and Services opens new perspectives for goods and value-added services in various industrial sectors. Engineering of industrial products and of industrial production systems is a multi-disciplinary, model- and data-driven engineering process, which involves engineers coming from several engineering disciplines. These engineer...
In the chapter Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Challenges of CPPS, data and information management issues arising from the advanced use of modern product development and engineering methods are addressed. These advanced methods are required for engineering processes of smart systems and individualized products with high complexity and variabilit...
This chapter summarizes and reflects on the material presented in this book regarding challenges and solutions for the required information processing and management in the context of the multi-disciplinary engineering of production systems.
This book discusses challenges and solutions for the required information processing and management within the context of multi-disciplinary engineering of production systems. The authors consider methods, architectures, and technologies applicable in use cases according to the viewpoints of product engineering and production system engineering, an...
In Austria a unique research program the so called Sparkling Science has been introduced by the Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy in 2007. Within this program, a research collaboration between Technische Universitaet Wien (TU Wien) and several Austrian Federal Secondary Colleges of Engineering (in Austria called HTL) has been set up...
The re-use of product knowledge is vital to the development of Knowledge-Based Engineering (KBE) systems and to the deployment of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) strategies. This paper addresses the challenges related to KBE-PLM systems integration in order to unlock engineering knowledge from proprietary representations and to manage the lifecy...
Electrical energy consumption of production facilities is not properly included in the production planning at present. Such a possibility offers optimization potential for companies to save energy and also contributes to balancing energy demand and supply. This paper presents results of a project dealing with the aim to provide means to set energy...
In Austria there is a unique curriculum of technical education which is taught at Federal Secondary Colleges of Engineering, commonly known as HTL. Since necessity of design collaboration within mechanical engineering projects between students and different colleges is given, the authors of this paper have conducted two projects to implement a PDM...
Electrical energy consumption of machine tools and production facilities for the production of goods is not included in the production planning process at present. This article presents first results of an ongoing research project with the aim to consider electrical energy demand besides other resources like personnel or machine capacity as plannin...
Information stored in the documentation of a product constitutes in many aspects the intellectual property (IP) of an enterprise. This valuable knowledge, built over years of extensive research and development deserves special attention and protection. Especially the context of distributed product development activities and increased collaborations...
In the context of Design for Environment (DfE) in product development, material selection is particularly important for the product. It affects its design, its manufacturing process, and the environmental impacts over its life cycle phases [1]. For technical or functional reasons, specific materials with best fitting characteristics are needed. Yet...
The paper describes research efforts to address three core problems of the complete process of product creation from an IT perspective and especially focusing on Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). Today’s major challenges are the support of globally distributed and multi-disciplinary teams, complexity, and enterprise knowledge management. Essentia...
Considering environmental aspects in early product development stages is a complex endeavor.
Product life cycle data are fuzzy and subject to changes. Additional workload due to
data handling is a common reason why it is withdrawn by engineering designers. Some studies
suggest parameterization of products in order to gain a limited set of parameter...
The consideration of environmental aspects into product design is becoming more and more a key strategic feature of products. However, the inclusion of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Eco design aspects in design is still far from being common practice. The complexity of the task, time-consumption and additional workload during design process may b...
Doing business globally causes the increase of very complex and dynamic processes. It demands a high level of flexibility and adaptability from the companies involved. The aim of companies is to find efficient ways in order to produce new products and to better meet customer demands. Open Innovation (OI) approaches contribute to this aim and theref...
The paper describes research efforts to address three core problems of the complete process of bringing a new product or service to market from an IT perspective and especially focusing on Product Lifecycle Management systems (PLMS). Today's major challenges are the support of globally distributed and multi-disciplinary teams, complexity, and enter...
Product Data Management (PDM) systems for Computer Aided Design (CAD) file management are widely established in design processes. This management system is indispensable for design collaboration or when design task distribution is present. It is thus surprising that engineering design curricula has not paid much attention in the education of PDM sy...
Individual product solutions require practicable concepts and IT support for fast product configuration and design. Knowledge of possible design options and basic conditions is of great significance in the conception of this type of support. The goal is an integrated conception and implementation of knowledge based IT applications for engineering d...
The objective of the work presented in this paper is to provide a methodology and tools for distributed PDM environments especially suited for virtual project based cooperation in engineering design. A research project called WebFlex-PDM (Web-enabled Flexible PDM federation) is introduced. This project mainly deals with extensions to existing PDM s...
The paper gives a comprehensive overview and a classification of the fundamentals and the current state of the art of Product Data Management (PDM) technology regarding the support of distributed product development. Based on experiences and results of actual industrial projects, the requirements for distributed product development are presented. C...
Product data management (PDM) is an emerging enabling technology to support product life cycle (PLC) management. The first part of this paper gives an overview of general and customized isolated PDM applications in different stages of the PLC. The second part of the presentation surveys the main approaches for an integrated PDM throughout the PLC a...
Projects
Projects (3)
The project "The digital twin for the fast and precise production of concrete modules" is part of the Priority Program 2187 of the German Research Foundation. It essentially deals with creating a complete, consistent and up-to-date model representation across the various phases and partial aspects of the building lifecycle. The digital twin as a digital representation in real time of product, process and resources ultimately functions as a hub for all data analysis and visualization tools as well as for the control of industrial production lines.
The primary objective of this K-Project is to provide an integrated platform for the automation of engineering design tasks. The platform will consist of a conceptual framework, including generative methods and algorithms for design automation as well as a software framework based on the implementation of those methods. Additionally, it will include methods for knowledge acquisition as to the rules and procedures used by domain experts during the engineering design process. Metrics for a-priori as well as a-posteriori cost-benefit assessment of particular automation projects will round off the project deliverables. The results of the project have been evaluated and benchmarked in real-world test-beds defined by the industrial partners.
Website: www.aeda.at
Worker-Centric Workplaces in Smart Factories (FACTS4WORKERS.EU) is a project coordinated by VIRTUAL VEHICLE in the Horizon 2020 program of the European Commission within the Factory of the Future PPP. The vision of FACTS4WORKERS is to leverage the large potential added value of manufacturing data, information and knowledge in a worker-centred way to achieve worker empowerment, resulting in higher worker satisfaction and increased worker productivity.
It is the high ambition of our project to create “FACTorieS for WORKERS” (FACTS4WORKERS), therefore a serious effort will be put into integrating already available IT enablers into a seamless & flexible Smart Factory infrastructure based on worker-centric and data-driven technology building blocks. As FACTS4WORKERS is underpinned by a clear human-centric approach: usability, user experience and technology acceptance are of the utmost project interest.
FACTS4WORKERS will develop and demonstrate workplace solutions that support the inclusion of increasing elements of knowledge work on the factory floor. These solutions will empower workers on the shop floor with smart factory ICT infrastructure. Advancement will be gained through integrating several building blocks from a flexible smart factory infrastructure, focusing on workers’ needs, expectations and requirements, and being supported by organisational measures and change management. In line with our assumptions on impacts on productivity we therefore estimate that that we can increase job satisfaction for 800,000 European workers by the year 2025.
These solutions will be developed according to the following four industrial challenges which are generalise-able to manufacturing in general: personalised augmented operator, worked-centric rich-media knowledge sharing/management, self-learning manufacturing workplaces and in-situ mobile learning in the production.
Moreover, FACT4WORKER‘s objectives in terms of measureable indicators are:
TO INCREASE PROBLEM-SOLVING AND INNOVATION SKILLS OF WORKERS;
TO INCREASE COGNITIVE JOB SATISFACTION OF WORKERS PARTICIPATING IN THE PILOTS;
TO INCREASE AVERAGE WORKER PRODUCTIVITY BY 10% FOR WORKERS PARTICIPATING IN PILOTS;
TO ACHIEVE TRL 5-7 ON A NUMBER OF WORKER-CENTRIC SOLUTIONS THROUGH WHICH WORKERS BECOME THE SMART ELEMENT IN SMART FACTORIES.
The smart factory demonstrator will be run within the automotive supply chain. The consortium is composed by 15 partners from 7 different EU member states including tier-1, -2 and -3 suppliers, large production enterprises and individual factories that are representative of many medium-sized manufacturing operations, manufacturing SMEs, universities and excellent research institutes.