Search

In the energy sector, few topics, if any, are more hyped than hydrogen. Countries develop hydrogen strategies to provide a perspective for hydrogen production and use in order to meet climate-neutrality goals. However, in this topical field the role of water is less accentuated. Hence, in this study, we seek to map the interrelations between the water and wastewater sector on the one hand and the hydrogen sector on the other hand, before reflecting upon our findings in a country case study. We chose the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan because (i) hydrogen is politically discussed not least due to its high potentials for solar PV, and (ii) Jordan is water stressed—definitely a bad precondition for water-splitting electrolyzers. This research is based on a project called the German-Jordanian Water-Hydrogen-Dialogue (GJWHD), which started with comprehensive desk research mostly to map the intersectoral relations and to scope the situation in Jordan. Then, we carried out two expert workshops in Wuppertal, Germany, and Amman, Jordan, in order to further discuss the nexus by inviting a diverse set of stakeholders. The mapping exercise shows various options for hydrogen production and opportunities for planning hydrogen projects in water-scarce contexts such as Jordan.

In Germany, the number of renewable energy prosumers has increased rapidly since 2000. However, the development of prosumers has faced and will continue to face various economic, social, and technological challenges, which have triggered the emergence of a number of innovative business models (BM). This paper enriches the empirical basis for prosumer-oriented BMs by investigating two BM innovations in Germany (P2P electricity trading and aggregation of small-size prosumers) drawing on business model and socio-technical transition theories. A mix of qualitative data collection methods, including document analysis and semi-structured expert interviews, was applied. We found that while both BMs can potentially address the challenges associated with renewable energy prosumer development in Germany, small-scale prosumers’ participation in both BMs has been limited so far. We identified various internal and external drivers and barriers for scaling up these BMs for prosumer development in Germany. Despite these barriers, both aggregation and centralized P2P targeting prosumers may potentially be also taken up by incumbent market actors such as utilities. Decentralized P2P on the other hand still faces significant internal and external barriers for upscaling. Based on the analysis, the paper provides policy recommendations with respect to the identified drivers and barriers. From a theoretical perspective, our findings provide further evidence to challenge the dichotomous understanding of niche actors and incumbents, the latter of which are often theorized to be resistant to radical innovations.

By designing global manufacturing networks still purely cost-based decisions are made, in which objectives such as delivery time, quality, flexibility, closeness to customer and coordination effort are neglected. The design and decision-making process becomes more complex, the more influencing factors of the business environment are considered. Due to the dynamic and uncertainty of these factors a decision support is required which includes all relationships in the network and its environment. This paper presents a dynamic multi-objective optimization model for global manufacturing networks, which evaluates the impact of changes of influencing factors and optimizes the global design of the manufacturing network.

By focusing on core competencies and the utilization of international location advantages such as access to low-wage labor and local sales markets, global production networks are becoming increasingly complex. Additionally, turbulent times with great uncertainty forces globally acting enterprises to adapt their production networks. Therefore, it is crucial to determine the right point in time for change and also to identify the beneficial production network alternatives. In other words, globally acting enterprises have to answer the two questions of what to change and when to change. The presented method describes an approach for the strategic planning of global changeable production networks, based on future scenarios and a multi-objective optimization to identify the most favorable network configuration during the planning horizon. The multi-objective optimization is modeled as a mixed-integer MODM problem (multiobjective decision making) including seven criteria i.e. costs, delivery time, quality, flexibility, customer proximity, coordination and plant qualification.

Kurzfassung In der variantenreichen Großserienfertigung, die über mehrere Standorte verteilt ist, kann über die Zeit ein historisch gewachsenes komplexes Produktionsnetzwerk entstehen. Für Unternehmen stellt die Evaluierung der Wirtschaftlichkeit der aktuellen Konfiguration eine entscheidende, aber auch herausfordernde Aufgabe dar. Ziel des hier vorgestellten Ansatzes ist es, eine pragmatische Herangehensweise zu erarbeiten, die eine Bewertung verschiedener Netzwerkalternativen anhand von quantitativen und qualitativen Kriterien er-möglicht. Somit kann ermittelt werden, ob eine Umstrukturierung der aktuellen Netzwerk-konfiguration auf Grund von ineffizienten Prozessen nötig ist. Die verschiedenen Alternativen können dann direkt miteinander verglichen und eine fundierte Entscheidung getroffen werden.

Kurzfassung Kleine und mittlere Unternehmen (KMU) beschäftigen üblicherweise keine Stabsstellen oder Planungsexperten zur Auslegung von Lean-Systemen. Außerdem verfügen die Mitarbeiter in KMU im Allgemeinen nicht über notwendige Erfahrung, um eine Lean-Planung ohne unterstützende Hilfsmittel schnell und zielgerichtet durchzuführen. Aus diesem Grund wurde im Projekt HyPlan ein hybrides Planungswerkzeug zur adaptiven Auslegung von Lean-Methoden in der variantenreichen Kleinserienproduktion entwickelt und prototypisch realisiert. Dieses Planungswerkzeug leitet den Planer schrittweise und systematisch durch den Planungsprozess und unterstützt ihn bei der Auswahl und Auslegung der Methoden des Lean-Systems.