The 1990s: Double Restart

Economic structural change is arriving at Fraunhofer IPK

Despite all efforts to boost the East German economy, contract research at the institute initially suffered a sharp decline. The reasons are complex. The West Berlin economy had been subsidized for years, primarily to keep the manufacturing sector in the city despite unfavorable location conditions and a lack of access to the surrounding area. This so-called Berlin subsidy was rapidly phased out after 1990, making the location unattractive for many companies. A large number migrated to West Germany, and previously close ties with Fraunhofer IPK often came to a standstill. At the same time, investment in research and development declined amid the general recession following German reunification.

The effects can be observed at the institute as if through a magnifying glass: Between 1992 and 1995, the number of employees at Fraunhofer IPK dropped sharply, while the budget simultaneously shrank drastically. A look at the client industries shows that the institute shifted its focus to stabilize its operations: While client companies before 1990 came primarily from the fields of electrical and communications engineering as well as mechanical engineering, the automotive industry, for example, now gained influence. Sectors that had previously generated only a small volume of contracts were now officially included in the statistics – such as optics or aerospace. From the mid-1990s onward, the institute’s financial situation stabilized on this basis, and the shift in sectoral focus sparked an exciting expansion of research topics throughout the decade.

Lights, camera, action!

It did not take long for practical applications of these advanced methods to emerge: From inspecting sewer systems with robots to quality-checking parts from casting processes and supporting diagnostics at the Deutsches Herzzentrum, Dr. Nickolay’s team was in high demand. And they actively sought out contacts beyond production. For the researchers, there was no doubt that their industrial image processing systems had the potential to be transferred from production to other fields. After all, they were capable of recognizing and analyzing virtually any pattern.

Pattern recognition, in the form of optical character recognition (OCR), thus increasingly found its way into everyday applications. It took just one to two seconds for a Fraunhofer IPK system to automatically recognize car license plates in parking garages. Projects on forgery protection, signature verification, and fingerprint identification were also highly successful: As a strategic partner to banks and government agencies such as the Bundeskriminalamt, the institute was involved in important developments in security technology for many years. The fact that Dr. Nickolay and his department had established a new focus for the institute’s research would continue to have an impact well into the 2010s – with projects such as the reconstruction of cultural artifacts that found users worldwide.

Anticipating the real-world process virtually

Modeling and simulation are indispensable tools in today’s manufacturing. From validating machining operations and setting up process chains to mapping complex organizational structures, they support processes at every level of the industrial hierarchy. The properties and behavior of systems are thus captured and optimized without the need for time-consuming real-world testing, and complex relationships are visualized in a comprehensible manner.

Against this backdrop, it is hardly surprising that, in an institute with a strong digital focus, the broad field of »simulation« became a defining area of activity at an early stage. Since the 1980s, the institute’s annual reports have included descriptions of research on simulation topics across all its departments. One example among the multitude of activities related to the simulation of manufacturing processes: In the early 1990s, the institute was able to virtually model the entire process of automated car body painting and implement corresponding solutions in the automotive industry. The technologies developed became part of the »RobCAD Painting Module« distributed by the Israeli company Tecnomatix, and from there were later incorporated into Product Lifecycle Management software made by Siemens. 

Various areas of expertise at the institute played a role in this field, such as construction technology and robotics. A contribution from the latter area was awarded a prize: Dr. Xiaoyi Liu was awarded AEG’s Carl Ramsauer Prize in 1992 for his dissertation on pneumatic and electrostatic painting processes. The reason for the award: Simulation integrates domain knowledge from various fields, bringing together physical, chemical, or mechanical aspects with information technology tools. Dr. Xiaoyi Liu succeeded groundbreakingly in harmonizing the fields of fluid mechanics, electric field theory, computer science, and practical industrial application. His method was applied industrially during the offline programming phase of painting robots to achieve a more uniform paint layer, increase painting efficiency, and prevent painting defects.

Because the actual motion phases of industrial robots accounted for only about 40 percent of cycle times, internal processes within the control such as interrupts, logic and on/off behavior were also responsible for deviations. To simulate these processes, RRS II was now intended to include an almost complete representation of the control systems within the simulation. Researchers at Fraunhofer IPK had already demonstrated that this was possible in the ROTEX project for space applications. For the development of the Virtual Robot Controller Interface (VRC), the consortium was expanded to include partners from robot manufacturing, software and control systems development. More than 35 companies were involved in total, working together for many years to further develop the interface.

The project continues to have a lasting impact: RRS I is still in effect in version 1.3.

With the systematization of benchmarking activities, the planning department headed by Kai Mertins, who had meanwhile become Professor, began to expand its portfolio from the planning of production facilities into the field of management methods. This was followed as early as 1997 by the founding of the Competence Center for Knowledge Management (CCWM). Knowledge is one of the most valuable intangible resources of a company, the importance of which often becomes apparent only when it is lost: When long-serving employees retire, companies lose a rich treasure trove of experiential knowledge. Systematizing and preserving this intellectual capital is the mission of the CCWM, which is nowadays headed by Dr. Markus Will.

An important tool of the CCWM is knowledge balance sheet reporting. Developed through 2004 as part of the pilot project »Knowledge Balance Sheet – Made in Germany« with a particular focus on the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises, it serves to align knowledge management (KM) with corporate and business strategy and to continuously assess the effectiveness and goal achievement of KM measures. The software application »Knowledge Balance Sheet Toolbox« supports this process. 

Going down the drain?

Researchers from Fraunhofer IPK also participated in numerous innovative projects in transportation technology – although not every one was crowned with long-term success. When the collaboration with CargoLifter began in 1999, the airship startup had just celebrated the groundbreaking ceremony for its shipyard in Brandenburg. One of the ways Fraunhofer IPK supported CargoLifter was by helping it find suppliers and representing the company at an aviation trade show in Moscow. In 2002, CargoLifter filed for bankruptcy and since 2004, the shipyard, the world's largest self-supporting hall, has housed an amusement park.

Whether in airships, airplanes or trains, washrooms with toilets are needed in many modes of transportation. As part of the »Lavatory Design Project«, Fraunhofer IPK coordinated with numerous companies from Berlin and Brandenburg to develop the vehicle toilet of the future. At ILA 2000, the futuristic-looking unit, featuring a design by the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences, was presented to Federal Minister of Economics Werner Müller and Governing Mayor Diepgen.

Athens, Hanover, Hennigsdorf!

With the advent of telematics, real-time traffic planning also took center stage. During trials of Floating Car Data (FCD) technology, test fleets used their GPS devices to transmit real-time traffic conditions from the Berlin road sections they were traveling on to the traffic control center at Fraunhofer IPK. There, the overall traffic situation could be calculated from the individual reports. Using image processing tools from the German Aerospace Center (DLR), researchers were also able, for the first time, to derive vehicle densities and traffic data from aerial photographs taken by a helicopter. FCD technology was quickly deployed at major international events: It supported the traffic control centers in Athens during the 2004 Olympic Games and in the Hanover area during the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

On the international stage

The mission of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is to support the German economy – and this mission sometimes takes the Fraunhofer institutes far beyond Germany’s borders, to every corner of the globe. The reasons for this can by manifold: Sometimes the goal is to pave the way for German industries to establish a presence abroad; other times, it is to support German companies operating overseas. Learning from international partners or jointly addressing global challenges can also serve as a starting point.

Aside from that, Fraunhofer is part of the scientific community, which is interconnected worldwide. For example, the International Academy for Production Engineering (CIRP), the most prestigious association of manufacturing researchers, currently has members from 41 countries. Its annual general assembly met in Berlin for the only time to date in 1990, specifically at the PTZ. This took place in the very year of German reunification and on the occasion of the 40th edition of the event – truly special circumstances for the conference.

Five years later, in November 1995, the Computer and Automated Systems Association of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (CASA/SME) decorated the PTZ with its LEAD Award. The award for »Leadership and Excellence in the Application and Development of Computer-Integrated Manufacturing« honored the unique combination of industry-oriented research and development, basic research, and teaching at the IWF and Fraunhofer IPK.

From Berlin to Jakarta

Fraunhofer IPK’s first comprehensive international initiative, dating back to the 1980s, was a collaboration with Indonesia. Initially, the institute supported on-site research and development projects; later, through an annual »Indonesia Day« held as part of Berlin’s Asia-Pacific Weeks, it promoted greater engagement by German companies in Indonesia, the most populous country in the Asia-Pacific region. In the 1990s, it played a key role in establishing a national research institute for production technology, the Mesin Perkakas Produksi Automatisasi (MEPPO) in Bandung.

To expand these activities, Fraunhofer IPK established a project office in Jakarta in the early 1990s. Through this branch office, the institute was involved in the mid-1990s in a major project that aimed at manufacturing a »national car« for Indonesia: Beginning in 1996, a team from Prof. Kai Mertins’ Production Planning department supported the planning of the TIMOR car factory in Jakarta. In 1999, the project office was converted into the Fraunhofer Representative Office (FRO) Indonesia; the 2008 economic crisis brought an end to Fraunhofer IPK’s strategic engagement in Indonesia. 

On technology parks and innovation systems

The founding of MEPPO opened up a new field of activity for Fraunhofer IPK that remains a key pillar of the institute to this day: the design of national innovation systems. The German federal government had provided financial support for the institute’s founding and subsequently sought to assess the state of local industrial development and determine how to support its further growth in the interest of German companies on a region-by-region basis. This led to a commission to develop a research plan for Indonesia.

To address this task, the institute developed a methodology that was later applied in various countries, such as Vietnam and Egypt. These activities reached their peak with the establishment of a comprehensive research landscape in Brazil beginning in the 2010s. However, smaller-scale innovation landscapes were also developed, such as technology parks in Dubai and Sharjah. 

The triad of manufacturing technologies, machine tools, and tools

To create the organizational foundation for the reorientation of research, the departments and research groups at Fraunhofer IPK were consolidated into six divisions that covered the entire process chain of industrial manufacturing operations and were designed to interact more closely. This also led to the creation of a division dedicated to the development, application, and adaptation of production systems and manufacturing technologies for the first time in the institute’s history. Initially focused on tool and mold making, this division quickly evolved into the »Product Manufacturing« division, which has since been developing new machining strategies and technologies as well as the corresponding tooling and machine technology, optimizing existing processes and equipment or adapting them to new conditions – such as the machining of novel high-performance materials, and implementing future-oriented tooling concepts. This work applies to both macro-manufacturing and micro-production technology, the latter of which would soon become a flagship area of the institute.

Product development for the next millennium

The situation on the CAx market in the early 1990s was clear: Although research projects like APS and programs developed in Berlin – such as COMVAR and COMPAC – had been major driving forces in both 2D and 3D modeling during the 1970s and 1980s, the market was dominated primarily by the better-resourced U.S. software manufacturers and their systems. »You would have to search with a magnifying glass to find German CAD providers,« wrote for example Computerwoche in 1994  in an article about the joint research project »CAD Reference Model« led by Fraunhofer IPK along with twelve industry partners and universities. Future-oriented, flexible, and computer-aided product development, human-centered design of work and technology, bringing high-quality products to market faster and more cost-effectively, product data management (PDM) – these were the buzzwords.

The researchers’ vision: systems for »The Virtual Product.« 2D editing becomes 3D processing, geometric models turn into virtual product models, which should now support all tasks along the process chains. The term »virtual« was not only meant to relate to digitalization: For Professor Frank-Lothar Krause, it also referred to companies networked via the Internet and distributed globally. Furthermore, virtual products should be created using new multimedia technologies such as VR and AR. On the initiative of Professor Krause, who has headed the institute's Design Technology department since its inception, a consortium of more than 50 partners led by Fraunhofer IPK, Volkswagen, and Siemens Business Services applied for the BMBF’s flagship project competition – and won: With 25 million euros in federal funding and an additional 25 million euros from industry partners, the participating software companies, research institutes, and end users would carry out projects on topics ranging from infrastructure to tools for virtual manufacturability testing to market preparation as part of the »Innovative Technologies and Systems for Integrated Virtual Product Development« (iViP) program until 2002.

The digital master

The goal of the iViP project was to create a comprehensive IT system environment for product development. Central to this was the concept of the open Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA): Instead of proprietary data formats and software that did not allow for integration, the iViP object interface and integration platform would enable data exchange between all tools used in product development. In the future, developers would organize their programs like building blocks within the central iViP client – including both locally installed iViP-compliant tools and external software that was not yet fully integrated, or even software-on-demand services that could be loaded from within their intranet or via the Internet as needed. Underpinning this, for the first time, was the »digital master« as the »single source of truth,« which made it possible to achieve digital continuity on a scale previously unattainable. The »Virtual Product Creation 2002« conference took stock of iViP upon its conclusion: A total of 45 prototypes were developed, of which approximately 30 became market-ready IT systems or could be integrated into other systems (for example, the PDM/PLM software axalant 2000 or SAP Automotive). SMEs, in particular, were to gain access to previously unaffordable high-tech software through the new iViP architecture and improve cooperation with clients and suppliers.

However, not all companies were ready to implement an open architecture in practice at the time and instead preferred to expand their own ecosystems – an incentive for institutions such as the Fraunhofer IPK to continue working on extensive industrial collaborations and exchange formats in the future. Also involved in the project was the ProSTEP association, which had been advocating for cross-industry data formats since 1993. Upon the completion of iViP, some partners decided to continue their joint work there. The resulting association, now called »prostep ivip,« has nearly 180 members from industry and research and regularly organizes international conferences, workshops, and other events related to industrial product development.

»Hi machine, how are you today?«

When, in the context of CIM, there was talk of »networking« components of a manufacturing control system, the focus was still on local networking. Although the internet had already been established by the late 1980s, access was still limited to universities. It wasn’t until 1990 that the U.S. National Science Foundation decided to open the network for commercial use – making it available for the work of Fraunhofer IPK as well. 

From Fraunhofer IPK’s perspective, the new ability to look from the outside into the inner workings of machine control systems was particularly interesting for machine monitoring and maintenance. Under the banner of » teleservice,« the Control Engineering department led by Eckhard Hohwieler therefore began integrating machine control systems into networks as soon as the World Wide Web emerged. The goal was to retrieve data from the control system and process it at any location – with the aim of enabling machine manufacturers to perform remote maintenance on the systems they sold. In the years that followed, the institute took on a pioneering role in this field.

Value-added services made by Fraunhofer

By the end of the 1990s, a platform had been developed that could capture any type of machine data. This not only enabled remote visualization of machine status but also supported service processes. To this end, the platform additionally captured user and contract data, which could be used as the basis for implementing after-sales services. Furthermore, to resolve control-related malfunctions, for example, the maintenance service no longer had to physically visit the site – while machine users benefited from increased system availability. 

Fraunhofer IPK contributed the technologies it had developed by the early 2000s to the Fraunhofer flagship project »e-Industrial Services,« which was launched in 2000 under the leadership of Fraunhofer IPA. In collaboration with the GMD Institute FOKUS (now Fraunhofer FOKUS), Ralf Berger developed a platform to support and implement digital service processes. The flagship project helped achieve greater reach and adoption for this topic.

The »e-Industrial Services« flagship project addressed topics that remain relevant to this day: The goal was to reduce the system costs of equipment over its entire life cycle. Equipment manufacturers were to increase the appeal of their products and tap into new business areas. Through service delivery, manufacturers were to obtain usage profiles of their equipment. This was intended to uncover optimization potential and, through »feedback to design,« incorporate these insights into the further development of products and services. During the project, Hohwieler’s team delved deeper into the topic of condition monitoring and expanded its developments in this area to include complementary services for a holistically digitally supported maintenance process. Many of the ideas could not yet be implemented as envisioned in the early 2000s. However, they formed the foundation for what would become widely adopted in the industry ten years later under the banner of »Industrie 4.0.«