Life cycle oriented customer networking in the tool an die making industry

位于产品开发和批量生产之间的工具和模具制造行业是高效生产行业的核心推动者。因此，德国的工具和模具制造工业对德国的经济实力作出了重大贡献。为了面对低工资国家带来的成本压力，同时为了控制产品和工艺的复杂性，工具和模具制造公司必须与其客户的价值创造过程建立网络。与上游客户的网络加工工具和模具制造公司将其工具相关的专业知识已经融入到产品开发中。因此开发分别将资源向上游客户流程转移是必要的。这种所谓的“前置”的结果是缩短了上市时间，显著提高了对交付日期的遵守程度，并降低了产品和工具开发的复杂性。刀具全生命周期服务和刀具定型后价值创造全过程的超车是与下游客户流程网络化的途径。因此，工具和模具制造公司有助于降低客户的感知复杂性。此外，降低了生命周期成本，加强了客户关系。正因为如此，下游网络是差异化战略的一部分，以对抗来自低工资国家的公司。然而，如今的工具和模具制造行业无法在工具的整个生命周期中处理一个整体的客户网络，这意味着一个关于组织结构、流程、信息和资源的网络。事实上，传统的思维将模具公司理解为工具和模具的独家供应商。面向生命周期的网络失败的主要原因在于提供的服务没有关注客户的需求。设想的研究项目的目标是为工具和模具制造行业的公司开发一种适当的方法，使其在工具的整个生命周期中与客户的整体和个人的价值创造过程联网。

The tool and die making industry, placed between product development and series production, functions as the central enabler of an efficient producing industry. Therefore the German tool and die making industry contributes significantly to the economic power of Germany. To face the rising cost pressure induced by low-wage countries as well as to contribute to the control of product and process complexity, the tool and die making companies have to network with the value creation processes of their customers. Networking with the upstream customer processes the tool and die making company sets its tool related know-how already into the product development. Therefore the development respectively the shift of resources to the upstream customer process is necessary. The results of this so-called frontloading are shortened time-to-market, significantly increased adherence to delivery dates as well as a decreased complexity of the development of products and tools. Services along the life-cycle of the tool respectively the overtaking of whole steps of value creation after finalization of the tool are ways to network with the downstream customer processes. Therefore the tool and die making company contributes to a decreased perceived complexity of the customers. Furthermore the life-cycle costs are reduced and the customer relationship is strengthened. Because of that the downstream networking is part of a strategy of differentiation against the companies from low-wage countries. However these days the tool and die making industry is not able to handle an holistic customer networking alongside the whole life-cycle of the tool, which means a networking regarding organizational structure, processes, information and resources. In fact the traditional thinking understands the tool and die company as the provider of tools and dies exclusively. The failure of a life-cycle oriented networking has its reasons mostly in service offers, which are not focused on the customers needs. The envisaged research project targets at the development of an adequate approach for companies of the tool and die making industry to network with the value creation processes of their customers holistically and individually alongside the whole life-cycle of the tool.