Fraunhofer-Institut für Produktionsanlagen und Konstruktionstechnik IPK

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  • Publication
    Application example: Assessment of the technological maturity of Brazilian innovation institutes
    ( 2019)
    Hecklau, F.
    ;
    Kidschun, F.
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    Will, M.
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    Kohl, H.
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    Prim, M.F.
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    Pavim, A.X.
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    Oliveira, J.E.
    The advancing globalisation and simultaneous liberalisation of the markets not only have a tremendous influence on companies in the manufacturing industry, but also lead to new challenges for the research sector. Especially Research and Technology Organisations (RTOs) as bridges of basic research and the industry favour technological change on the one hand and increase the competitiveness of the industry through innovative solutions on the other. (Arnold, Clark, Jávorka 2010; Breznik 2015). The resulting high need for technological innovation pushes RTOs to intensify competition for technology leadership in order to sustain market competiveness. In this regard, RTOs must be able to develop technological solutions that translate results from research and science into state-of-the-art products and services. This can only be achieved when technological resources and competences are effectively and efficiently used to build up competitive advantages. (Kröll 2007; Figueiredo 2014; Zehnder 1997) Therefore, the assessment of technological maturity can provide RTOs with information on strengths and weaknesses in their specific technology areas (Kelessidis 2000), on the basis of which technology strategies can be derived to contribute to the development and training of substantial (core) competences (Klappert, Schuh, Aghassi 2011), which in turn improve the quality of unique and differentiating products and services (EARTO 2005). In this context, the aim of this paper is to give an application example of a technological maturity assessment of a Brazilian institutes of innovation within the framework of a technology audit. The organization SENAI (National Service of Industrial Training), which is mainly responsible for vocational training and education with more than 1.000 units spread all over Brazil, started to create a network of 26 applied research units (the SENAI Innovation Institutes - ISIs) in 2012. After the first years of operation and ramping-up these institutes, the headquarter of SENAI and the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, under the leadership of the Fraunhofer IPK, jointly started in 2017 to evaluate the technological maturity of the SENAI Innovation Institutes. Within this paper, the methodology as well as the results of selected technology audits that were executed in different ISIs in 2019 will be described.
  • Publication
    Comparative analysis of German and Brazilian innovation systems to improve binational cooperation
    ( 2017)
    Melo, G.
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    Haunschild, J.
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    Orth, R.
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    Will, M.
    ;
    Kohl, H.
    Brazil is the core economy of Latin America, and Germany plays that role for the EU. Bilateral relations between Brazil and Germany are long-standing and comprehensive. For more than 140 years, Brazil and Germany have been connected by active bilateral diplomatic relations. Based on this solid relation and their economic positions, it is interesting to find means of collaboration, especially in long-term strategies as innovation. Based on broadly literature review, this study attempts to identify strength and weaknesses of each National Innovation System through a framework that comprises six different functions and three types of interactions between the actors in the system. They are policy formulation, performing R&D, financing R&D, promotion of human resource development, technology bridging, promotion of technological entrepreneurship; R&D collaboration, technology diffusion, labour mobility. This research contributes to a new perspective that is particularly interested in the differences in these structures in developing countries and countries at the frontier. Besides, the outcome of this study guides insights on how two leading economies, which have historical great relations, could better cooperate in innovation, science and technology field. This study attempts to examine, by means of a SWOT analysis, the Brazilian and German Innovation System in order to suggest improvements on each system and the binational cooperation concerning science, technology and innovation. The first step of the paper is the identification of the strengths and weakness in each National Innovation System based on library resources, articles, reports and other secondary data. In a second step, through interviews with relevant experts, the study tries to clarify the opportunities and threats on the binational cooperation.
  • Publication
    Innovating management or managing innovation
    ( 2014)
    Sequeira, C.A.
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    Will, M.
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    Fernandez, E.F.Y.
    In a recent paper, Sequeira et al. (2013) points out that it is time to think about new ways of managing companies, particularly in emerging economies. Intangible assets become a key success factor for sustainable growth especially in the emerging countries. As experiences in the fast moving city and state of Rio de Janeiro have shown, the development of systematic management procedures for these intangible assets is extremely useful for fast growing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in order to serve as a solid backbone for an increasingly knowledge-based economy. Brazil has been evolving into a knowledge society dealing with political changes, globalization, new technologies, and new global competitors, such as China and India. A quick Google search on the issues innovating management and managing innovation shows the predominance of the second one, with 95% of interest. Even so, this paper intends to demonstrate, based on a case study, that Innovating Management is extremely relevant for companies and, particularly, for those emerging countries that wish to become competitive in a global economy. Furthermore, the paper discusses the challenge of integrating a method of Intellectual Capital into a comprehensive strategic change process. In order to promote sustainable business development in an emerging economy, the method, named Intellectual Capital Statement Brazil (ICSBR), has to be used to establish a continuous improvement cycle in the individual company, focusing on practical actions for maintaining and developing its intangible assets to ensure future competitive capability. The need to enhance companies' and, by extension, countries ' competitiveness has grown rapidly. As a consequence, organisations and, particularly, government policies need to redress some critical competitiveness issues. In this sense, the paper demonstrates that the establishment of the National Monitor of Innovation, as a strategic tool, can fulfill the requirements of main stakeholders ' perspectives. Without such tool, organisations and the country will find it difficult to position themselves within the global marketplace.
  • Publication
    Methodological facilitation of collaboration in innovation networks
    ( 2014)
    Kohl, H.
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    Will, M.
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    Riebartsch, O.
    ;
    Cap, J.P.
    Organizations in the start-up phase are facing scarce resources and lacking experience. The 'valley of death' describes this danger along the development of a new organization mainly focusing on the financial perspective. However, the danger of failure along the development of an organization is not only due to financial reasons. The financial status can easily be monitored by performance indicators and actions can be derived from these. Other important aspects that are crucial and need to be monitored and improved are the structural capital (e.g. organization/management), human capital (e.g. professional competence and soft-skills) and relational capital (e.g. relations to Venture Capitalists, universities). These aspects are intangible by nature and therefore more difficult to evaluate than the financial status, but the success of a company highly depends on these aspects. Furthermore interdisciplinary problem definitions are increasingly demanding professional expertise and technological applications from different research fields. As a solution an assessment and improvement of intellectual capital combined with the identification of collaboration potential with partners can support organizations to survive the 'valley of death'. Therefore we developed an integrated methodology that assesses the intellectual capital and resources of an organization and evaluates the collaboration potential between different organizations to improve the success of each organization. As a result the combination of entrepreneurial knowledge in networks can lead to multiplying effects for all involved parties and lead to multiple-win situations. The bundled expertise of research organizations, universities, enterprises and start-ups improves the overall performance of the participating organizations concerning acquisition, problem solving and efficiency. The methodology puts a strong focus on practical application.
  • Publication
    Intellectual capital statements in Brazilian SME: Lessons learned from the first pilot-implementations
    ( 2012)
    Fernández y Fernandez, E.
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    Mertins, K.
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    Sequeira, C.A.
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    Will, M.
    In the rapidly emerging Brazilian economy, and especially in the fast moving city and state of Rio de Janeiro, intangible assets become a key success factor for sustainable growth. As experiences from Europe, and for instance from Japan, have shown, the development of systematic management procedures for these intangible assets is particularly importantfor fast growing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in order to function as the solid backbone for an increasingly knowledge-based economy. In this context, keeping productivity at a constant high level in a dynamic and fast growing business environment - and, thus, securing individual profits and national welfare at the same time - becomes a major management goal. This goal can only be achieved if the intangible success factors, such as employees' expertise and motivation, internal communication and management structures as well as external relations, all of which are summarized in theconcept of Intellectual Capit al (IC), are maintained and developed in a professional and adequate manner, meeting the specific demands of fast growing SMEs. This management challenge has been the starting point for the first pilot-project on implementing the management tool "Intellectual Capital Statement" (ICS) in ten pioneer SMEs from Rio de Janeiro. Taking into account the experiences from the German pilot-project "Wissensbilanz - Made in Germany" as well as the European pilot-project "InCaS", a special implementation procedure for micro and small companies has been designed and tested. Theso-called "ICS Factory" aims at ensuring fast practical results in the companies as well as supporting rapid prototypingand an action research approach to be used for the development of an adapted Brazilian version of the ICS. In a two-day workshop concept, with three to five SMEs each represented by two to three senior managers and key people, a complete analysis of the company's individual IC is produced, based on the structured self-ass
  • Publication
    Analysing and enhancing IC in business networks: Results from a recent study
    ( 2010)
    Mertins, K.
    ;
    Will, M.
    ;
    Meyer, C.
    Since the acknowledgement of intellectual capital (IC) as the major driver of a company's competitive and innovative performance numerous scientific models and practical approaches were developed to capture and display the IC elements of businesses in order to make them visible and accessible for management. But since the economy has gone global and businesses are acting within a global business landscape the view on IC needs to be expanded to these new structures. Especially for small and medium sized enterprises (SME) commitment in networks and clusters is crucial for sustainable competitiveness on international markets. Alike single companies, also business networks highly depend on IC in order to perform successfully and effectively. The way businesses cooperate, exchange and acq uire knowledge, find suitable partners, solve problems, develop and profit from the network has an impact on the company itself as well as on the network. Aiming at an IC-based assessment and support of SME networks, the methodology presented in this paper follows a bottom-up approach starting with the assessment of IC in the single company. Within the research projects InCaS: Intellectual Capital Statements Made in Europe and Wissensbilanz Made in Germany a methodology has been developed which has proved to be capable of collecting comparable qualitative IC data. Based on these results, a consolidated approach has been designed recently, collecting IC data from more than 600 companies in Germany. The results are comparable and individual at the same time, allowing to display IC se ttings of single companies as well as to aggregate IC information within an IC portfolio for a whole group of companies. The paper will present the methodology as well as some first results from the study taking a look at the German IC landscape based on more than 600 individual IC assessments. The paper will also discuss the possibilities of using the results for IC enhancement in networks and clusters from the view of the single company.
  • Publication
    InCaS: Intellectual Capital Statement. Measuring intellectual capital in european small and medium sized enterprises
    ( 2009)
    Mertins, K.
    ;
    Will, M.
    ;
    Meyer, C.
    It is a common ground, that Intellectual Capital (IC) has become the critical success factor for enterprises operating in a knowledge driven economy. Especially for European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) it is crucial to utilise and manage their intangible resources efficiently in order to obtain their competitive advantage, since they highly depend on specialised human, structural and relational capital for successful differentiation on the market. Therefore, the EU-project "InCaS: Intellectual Capital Statement - Made in Europe" has been designed to help European SMEs in detecting, analysing, managing and reporting their IC in order to strengthen their capability to quickly respond to market needs and thus, increase their competitiveness. As the main project result the "European Guideline for Intellectual Capital Statements (ICS)" has been published in November 2008 summarising the InCaS methodology that has been developed, empirically tested and enhanced during three project phases in close cooperation between IC experts, European business associations and 25 SMEs from five European countries. Aiming at harmonising the different existing national ICS methods on a practical level suitable for SMEs, the InCaS research team discovered two main opposing approaches: While a quantitative measurement of intangible assets suits the requirements of external reporting as it can be standardised and compared more easily, it shares the problems of common balance sheets: standardised indicators and quantitative data can not display the individual business model and strategy in reasonable depth. Therefore, empirical evidence shows that little value for the management and development of IC can be drawn out of those solely quantitative approaches. Qualitative methods, on the other hand, aim at assessing the strengths and weaknesses of Intellectual Capital in regard to their future value, taking the individual business model and strategy of the single organisation into account. The European ICS is an instrument to assess, develop and report an organisation's IC, to monitor critical success factors systematically, and to support strategic management decisions. Supported by the software " ICS Toolbox", the workshop-based approach of InCaS combines qualitative and quantitative methods in order to overcome the conceptual dilemma stated above. This paper will describe the InCaS method and implementation process as well as empirical findings from 50 pilot-implementations. The evaluation shows that the methodology has proven to be highly beneficial for internal management purposes allowing to derive specific actions for the well-targeted improvement of IC in the value adding processes of the company. Moreover, the standardised process and structure of the ICS report supports the communication of IC to external stakeholders, as well. If some basic quality requirements outlined in the European ICS Guideline are met, the method can also serve as a basis for comparability between different organisations. A quality assurance concept helps to ensure credibility and trustworthiness of the IC reports, especially for investors and banks.
  • Publication
    Strategic relevance of intellectual capital in European SMEs and sectoral differences
    ( 2008)
    Mertins, K.
    ;
    Will, M.
    As the Lisbon Agenda declares the aim for the European Union to become the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based market in the world until 2010, management instruments are needed to support companies achieving this ambitious goal. Small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) are especially affected by this plan as they are the driving force of Europe's economy. To obtain their competitive advantage, it is crucial for SMEs to utilise knowledge efficiently and to enhance their innovation potential. Thus, managing their specific Intellectual Capital (IC) becomes more and more important for future-oriented organisations. As the value of knowledge highly depends on its particular strategic context it is neither possible nor meaningful to measure the value of knowledge in absolute terms. Knowledge should rather be evaluated regarding its potential to support the company's individual strategic objectives. A practical way to tackle this challenge is the methodology developed by the German pilot project "Wissensbilanz - Made in Germany" and the European pilot project "InCaS: Intellectual Capital Statement - Made in Europe". By applying this method in more than 50 German and 25 European small and medium-sized enterprises it was possible to support the participating companies in identifying, evaluating and developing their strategically relevant knowledge. Furthermore it helped to gain comparable data about crucial knowledge in SMEs and to develop first strategic recommendations in an empirical study. This paper summarises how the InCaS method supports companies developing a knowledge-based strategy. Moreover it describes research results gained from the German and European project about the strategic relevance of particular IC factors in general and their relevance depending on the business sector. Whereas for the German project the differences between the sectors "Industry" and "Services" have been analysed, the results of the European InCaS project allowed for a more detailed analysis between the branches "Business Services & IT", Machinery & Equipment", "Construction", "Electronics" and "Retail Trade & Other Services". Besides the overall dominance of Human Capital factors the results indicate that companies in the Industry sector focus on knowledge management activities based on IT and explicit knowledge (codification strategy). The strategically most relevant knowledge in this sector is professional competences, i.e. specialised know-how needed to run the company's main business processes. Service companies, on the other hand, seem to focus on their individual employees' expertise and informal knowledge transfer if they want to ensure long-term and strategic business success (personalisation strategy). In this sector, motivation and leadership abilities are strategically equally important or even more important than specialised know-how.
  • Publication
    Organizational knowledge management: From strategy to operational implementation
    ( 2007)
    Mertins, K.
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    Finke, I.
    ;
    Orth, R.
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    Will, M.