With the concept idea "#Spaicer - scalable adaptive production systems through AI-based resilience optimization", the team from the Machine Tool Laboratory WZL at RWTH Aachen University in cooperation with the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence DFKI in Saarbrücken and the Institute for Technology and Innovation Management TIM at RWTH Aachen University has succeeded in being one of 35 teams to win the ideas competition "Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a driver for economically relevant ecosystems" organized by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi). The vision of the #Spaicer research project is to develop a framework model for AI-based resilience management for manufacturing companies in value creation networks.

"On the basis of hybrid AI platforms and accompanying economic and legal utilization concepts, we want to create the foundation for a 'Smart Resilience Service Ecosystem' for various stakeholders in production networks," says Professor Wolfgang Maaß, Scientific Director of DFKI in Saarbrücken, describing the tasks of the research project.

In psychology, resilience describes a person's ability to deal with critical situations or to quickly return to a state prior to these critical situations. Resilience therefore exists when people use or develop processes, methods and behaviors that protect them from the possible negative and lasting effects of stressors.

"The #Spaicer project aims to clarify the extent to which we can transfer the concept of resilience from psychology to production using AI," says Dr. Daniel Trauth, Senior Engineer at the Chair of Manufacturing Process Technology at the Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL) at RWTH Aachen University and Head of the Digital Transformation of Manufacturing Processes department. "We also want to investigate how many disruptions a technical production network, consisting of machines, people and markets, can withstand before quality, costs or production times get out of hand in the long term."

Contact with a wide range of industrial companies is essential for the success of the project, which is why the researchers at WZL, DFKI and RWTH TIM are dependent on dialog with industry and business. This is the only way to correctly identify and evaluate requirements.

"Companies often fail at the core task of reacting quickly enough to a changing environment, such as new market participants, different customer needs, technological change or similar, with a suitable transformation of their own operational, but also strategic orientation," explains Christian Gülpen, Head of Digitalization at the Institute for Technology and Innovation Management at RWTH Aachen University. This is one of the reasons why many established companies have difficulties in dealing with start-ups. There are many reasons for this organizational inertia. As part of #Spaicer, German companies are to be supported with a combination of AI and platform economics to turn these challenges into competitive advantages.

The research project started on 15 April 2019 and the researchers are now required to develop the concept over the next four months so that it can be put into practice in a three-year implementation phase from 1 January 2020. However, it will first be evaluated by an independent jury in August 2019. Interested companies are invited to advise the researchers from WZL, DFKI and RWTH TIM. A non-binding questionnaire, a letter of intent and contact options are available for this purpose on the project website: https://medium.com/spaicer-resilient-manufacturing. as