Fraunhofer-Institut für Produktionsanlagen und Konstruktionstechnik IPK

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  • Publication
    Building the ENRICH Community - Common European Network as Advantage for ENRICH in Brazil, China and in the USA
    ( 2018)
    Haunschild, Johanna
    ;
    Orth, Ronald
    ;
    Pereira Ferreira, Romulo
    This paper investigates the benefits and risks of cooperation on the case of the European Network of Research and Innovation Centres and Hubs (ENRICH), which is currently being established in Brazil, China and the United States. Funded by Horizon 2020, an initiative of the European Union to foster research and innovation, the programme seeks to consolidate a European network in the field with other important regions of the globe. In this scenario, it is argued that building a common European community would bring more incentives and benefits to ENRICH than having a separate one for each centre, in line with noteworthy economic theories. By creating an even stronger strategic network, the ENRICH initiative could make use of its biggest assets - its partners and acting markets - to strategically insert itself into the global innovation ecosystem as a major player.
  • Publication
    Deployment of a business and innovation centre to foster cooperation between Europe and Brazil
    ( 2017)
    Haunschild, Johanna
    ;
    Melo, Gustavo
    ;
    Orth, Ronald
    ;
    Will, Markus
    ;
    Kohl, Holger
    Research and Development as well as science and technology are key elements for innovation, and more generally are some among many areas that are becoming global. This reduces the influence of individual countries or blocs such as the European Union (EU) on developments both at home and abroad but also generates important benefits through specialization, trade and competition. R&D and science & technology are still strongly focused on the 'Triad' countries overall. However, this pattern is weakening fast, as especially the large emerging economies' role in global science, technology and innovation continues to increase. Following this reasoning, Brazil deserves special attention due its economic strength, accounting for almost 38% of Latin American GDP (IMF, 2013), and its huge entrepreneurship potential (Arruda, 2015). Against this background, the purpose of this paper is to examine in a first step the Innovation Systems of Brazil and Europe, then to show in a second step, how joint activities and programs can address the needs for a fruitful cooperation in international innovation in order to strengthen both Innovation Systems. For the first aspect, the paper provides an examination of Innovation Systems of Brazil and European countries based on library resources, articles, reports and other secondary data. The OECD bibliography will be the guideline to understand the Innovation Systems of the relevant countries. Regarding the second aspect, the EU Horizon 2020 funded project CEBRABIC - Centre for Europe-Brazil Business & Innovation Cooperation - will be elucidated. CEBRABIC aims at enhancing the cooperation in research, technology and entrepreneurship between the EU member states and Latin America's leading economy, Brazil. CEBRABIC will be a Centre working on a network basis: creating synergies and complementarities is the core value; particularly with European research and innovation (R&I) structures located in Brazil.
  • Publication
    Business model innovation: A comparative analysis
    ( 2016)
    Steinhöfel, Erik
    ;
    Kohl, Holger
    ;
    Orth, Ronald
    In the past, companies often maintained a business model (BM) for long periods. Today, this is no longer possible as changes in the business environment such as inter-industry competition, shifting patterns of demand, new products, production or distribution technologies erode the power of established BMs. As a consequence, companies are forced to systematically manage or reinvent their BMs and become able at doing so. Although companies believe that the management and innovation of BMs can significantly contribute to business success they are often not able to realize such transformation due to a lack of required abilities and knowledge as well as suited processes and mechanisms to support them. Against this background, the focus of this contribution is on current approaches and procedure for managing and innovating BMs. Based on a literature review within the BM discipline and further associated disciplines BMI approaches have been identified and are described, analysed and compared regarding a practical application. Thus, giving the reader an overview of current comprehensive approaches and thereby establishing a basis for further research and development is the aim of this paper.
  • Publication
    Towards corporate sustainability
    ( 2013)
    Kohl, Holger
    ;
    Orth, Ronald
    Corporate sustainability can be defined as a business approach that creates and sustains the long-term value of a company by embracing opportunities and managing risks from three dimensions: the economic, environmental, and social perspective (Lo and Sheu 2007). In this context the development and use of intellectual capital (IC) provides an important lever for the implementation of sustainability management due to the fact that the IC of an organisation affects the performance of the three sustainability dimensions equally. A variety of sustainability management concepts point out the relevance of intangible resources whereas appropriate assessment and management approaches which reveal the contribution of IC are not or only very limited provided. Study results prove that the number of enterprises which are oriented towards sustainability has increased in recent years, but the implementation still encounters a variety of limits. This especially applies to small and medium sized enterprises (SME). Due to time and financial restrictions, many SMEs do not see themselves in a position to implement sustainable development as a part of the corporate strategy (Drenk 2009). Therefore concepts and methods have to be found in order to provide new and promising instruments in particular for SMEs which constitute the majority of Europe's economic strength. Within this research paper different aspects regarding the integration of Intellectual Capital and Sustainability Management in a SME context should be examined in detail. Against the background of the "Fraunhofer Integrated Model" the relevance of indicators for an integrated management approach will be highlighted. In the past, in particular quantitative indicators represented the largest share of measured variables. However, more and more non-monetary, qualitative indicators are increasingly included in the catalogues (Hirsch et al. 2004). Based on a systematic review of existing indicator catalogues, requirements and initial content for an integrated indicator format will be formulated. Against this background the aspect of benchmarking will be taken into account. The developed methodology is currently tested in a SME from the manufacturing sector. The last chapter of this paper will outline the preliminary results of this practical implementation.