Improving order fulfillment processes with MBSE

Highly customized products dominate in the mechanical engineering industry. Products like machine tools, food processing or packaging machines are characterized by a high complexity, a low quantity and a long-term machine life. This leads to a high number of variants and project specific modules and components. High efforts during order fulfillment processes occur. The development of mechanical embossed products to Cyber-Physical Systems reinforces the difficulties of the mechanical engineering industry. The interdisciplinary approaches of Systems Engineering and Model-Based Systems Engineering are suitable to improve order fulfillment processes. Therefore we introduce an approach to improve order fulfillment processes with Model-Based Systems Engineering. Our results meet the challenges of the mechanical engineering industry as follows: creating a domain-spanning description of the system and the business process to gain a common understanding; optimizing the system architecture by defining mechatronic modules; improving the sustainable communication within the company and with customers by training courses and tool support. The results are validated by a practical example.