Günther Schuh

Philipp Stüer
email: philipp.stueer@fir.rwth-aachen.de

Framework for Lean Management in Industrial Services

Keywords: service management, lean services, service operations, customer value, service delivery processes

ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

Introduction

Within the next years industrial services will gain relevance not only in Germany [START_REF] Berger | Studie Industrieservices Deutschland[END_REF].

The constantly growing number of jobs in Germanys' service sector is one indicator of this development (see Figure 1). Growth of industrial services and increasing competition lead the focus of the scientific community towards service operations and approaches to increase productivity in this field. Industrial service companies suffer from a lack of procedures for increasing productivity and ensuring profitability. The question is how to efficiently and effectively design and operate service delivery processes. Adaptation of manufacturing proven management approaches would be one obvious way, which is intensively discussed within the scientific community. This paper describes a lean management framework for industrial services rooted in three significant service specific characteristics being described within the next chapter.

Relevance and State of the Art

As one of the most widespread techniques Lean Management has already been successfully transferred from manufacturing to adjacent fields like administration [3] and innovation [START_REF] Lenders | Lean Innovation -Prinzipien und Methoden für Innovation ohne Verschwendung[END_REF], [START_REF] Schuh | Mit Lean Innovation zu mehr Erfolg[END_REF]. That Lean Management in its original form cannot directly be applied in the service context has already been stated by several publications [START_REF] Bicheno | The Lean for Service Systems[END_REF], [START_REF] Womack | Lean Thinking[END_REF], [START_REF]Åhlstrom: Lean Service Operation: translating lean production principles to service operations[END_REF]. Existing management approaches for industrial services either do not or only partly address service specific characteristics or they do not regard lean principles for industrial services until now [START_REF] Portioli-Staudacher | Lean Implementation in Service Companies[END_REF]. Focusing industrial services three constitutive characteristics have to be regarded. First characteristic is the immateriality of services. Even if service delivery is often combined with a material good into an incentive system, the service part of the incentive system is immaterial. One exemplary process from industrial services is a repair process, in which spare parts are installed for ensuring technical availability of a machine or component. Experience and professionalism of the service staff together with high quality spare parts build an incentive system for the owner of the manufacturing plant as the customer.

Second constitutive characteristic is the integration of the external factor. As direct interaction between service provider and service customer or service object is required in industrial services [10]. Machines, components or a material good are also examples for the external factor.

The third characteristic refers to value as an original lean management principle. It says, that lean service delivery ether increases the customer value related to a material good, or the value contribution in a core value creation process (or value stream) of the customer.

Objectives and Research Approach

Regarding the named three characteristics a lean management approach for industrial services has to scope and analyze the customers' core processes before designing the service delivery processes with the purpose of adding customer value. Scope of lean service management also includes controlling, assessment and continuous improvement of running service delivery processes. Existing approaches for the description of a service lifecycle such as Raverdy 2008 [START_REF] Raverdy | [END_REF] (see Figure 2) have also been influencing the creation of the core result of this paper.

Fig. 2.:

Service lifecycle designed for mobile service platforms [START_REF] Raverdy | [END_REF] Within the following subchapters phases and principles of the framework for lean management in industrial services will be described. The following aspects have been extracted from several case study analyses. Keynote for this approach is the wastefree realization of customer value.

Results: Framework for Lean Service Management

The Lean Services Framework is divided in five phases. Each phase contains three principles for orientation towards excellence in lean service management. The phases and principles of the framework are positioned in a consecutive order. The framework begins with the phase defining strategic benefit and then leads to definition of service delivery processes and breadth of service offering. The last part of the framework focusses operational aspects of service management.

Defining Strategic Benefit

Before focusing service operations constraints for a waste-free realization of customer value have to be considered. Added value for the service customer can only be generated, when the service provider is capable to handle core processes his customer complete or partly and with a higher productivity. Therefore Identification of Core Processes at the customer with potential for being delivered "as a service" has to be conducted. Fig. 3. Core processes at the customer and "as a service" processes delivered by the service provider

After core processes of the customer are identified, the Strategic Positioning of Core Processes is the next principle within the framework. Core processes with high strategic importance for the customer bear lower chances for being offered to an external service provider. Strategic benefit for the customer is obvious, when service delivery strengthens him to achieve his goals with lower effort. For ensuring the realization of synergies within service delivery from the providers perspective Locating Priorities of Customers Goals is necessary. The phase Definition of Strategic Benefit is the root for high productive service delivery within the customers' core processes.

Creating Service Value Stream

Interaction between service customer and service provider significantly improves overall productivity of the core processes. Therefore the service provider has to describe a Definition of the Ideal Core Process including his contribution to value creation, meaning the added value for the customer. Result is transparency through Identification of Options for Added Value and Wastes within the customers' core processes. The service provider can identify options for added value and transparent wastes from comparing the ideal core process with the actual customers' core process. Build-

As-a-Service Processes

Customers

Core Processes

Line of visibility

Service value stream

Customers Core Processes

Line of visibility ing on the ideal core process the next principle of the framework is Definition of Service Types to be offered to the customer. Depending on quantity and possible combinations of options for added value, different types of services can be defined for the customer. Quantity and combination of service types directly impact the service delivery process and service productivity.

Structuring Service Execution

After focusing the service delivery process respectively the value stream, service execution needs to be structured. The principle Specification of Diversity and Range of Service Offers includes aspects of quantity structure and complexity. Capabilities of the service provider in terms of resources predominantly influence this phase of the lean service management framework. Service Configuration is the subsequent principle when structuring the service execution. Before considering characteristics of service operations, added value for the customer and the service provider has to be ensured through the subsequent principle Service Calculation. Objective is to quantify and validate the productivity advantage of the service-provider-performance towards the customers'.

Simple Synchronization

The phase Simple Synchronization is introduced by one of the core lean management principles rooted in the manufacturing context. To assure minimum waste through unnecessary resource disposition or wrong service configuration, decentralized control instruments through Implementing Pull Mechanisms are necessary. Synchronization of the customers' core processes with service delivery processes requires the Introduction of Tact. For synchronization with the customer the processes as well as resources have to be taken into account. The principle Introduction of Tact needs to receive further enhanced attention in terms of planning and scheduling, if several service providers are involved in one core customer process. After implementing pull mechanisms and introducing tact, Leveling Demand helps service providers to further increase resource efficiency. Decoupling point of service demand and point of service delivery as well as utilization of stackable activities supports balancing the workload of service staff under consideration of the principle Leveling Demand.

Perfection

Progress in striving towards perfection in lean industrial services management requires transparency of strategic and operative values. Selected specific Key Performance Indicators display the impact of improvement actions and customer satisfaction. Service Controlling allows an insight into the performance of service delivery which is related to the Simple Synchronization phase as well as the validation of Service Calculation aspects. The principle Service Controlling and KPI´s is also closely related to the Structuring Service Performance phase of the framework. Steps on the path towards perfection can be described by a capability maturity model which is displayed in the principle Lean Performance Levels. Completing the framework for lean management in industrial services a Release Management describes milestones for service updates and detachment of obsolete service types and offers.

Conclusion

The framework for Lean Management in Industrial Services, which is described in this paper, sets apart from existing management approaches in this field. Industrial services underlie three main distinguishing characteristics towards manufacturing as the root of the classic five lean principles. These characteristics require a specific management approach for industrial services. Based on state of the art literature analysis, project work with leading providers of industrial services in Germany and the analysis of several case studies, this approach for Lean Management in Industrial Services was created. Customer value, the core processes of the customer and the lasting pursuit for productivity improvement have led the authors' research to the Framework for Lean Management in Industrial Services (see Figure 5). Together with the five phases "Defining Strategic Benefit", "Creating the Service Value Stream", "Structuring Service Execution", "Simple Synchronization" and "Perfection" 15 Principles help service companies to identify chances and implement Lean Management in their operational business.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. : Development of employment within three sectors in Germany [2]

Fig. 4 .

 4 Fig. 4. Service value stream

Fig. 5 .

 5 Fig. 5. Framework for Lean Management in Industrial Services


Frequency Beam Scanning and Gain Enhancement Properties of PBG-Antennas

The main purpose of this communication is to present the frequency beam scanning possibility of PBG-antennas and the relationship with high gain property. To this end, we will first remind the gain enhancement phenomenon and then generalize the results to the steered beam antennas.

The first analysis and design of high gain antenna using periodic structures can be attributed to Von Trentini, where he used a simple Fabry-Perot (FP) cavity having a single partially reflecting surface (G.Von Trentini, IRE Trans. on Antenna and Propagation, vol. 4, 666-671, 1956). We will show that for FP structures, the angular selectivity Δθ 3dB , i.e. the antenna half power beam width (HPBW), is related to the to the frequency selectivity, i.e. the quality factor Q of the structure by the following relationship : Δθ 3dB ≈2/√Q. More recently the defect mode of multiple layer PBG structures has been used to enhance the antenna directivity gain (M. Thevenot et al., IEEE Trans., MTT, vol. 47, no. 11, 1999). However, the frequency beam scanning property of PBG antennas or FP cavities has not been sufficiently emphasized on in the literature and is not well known to the antenna engineers. Hence, we propose here to focus on this aspect of PBG-antennas.

Figure 1a presents a simple PBG-antenna where the partially reflecting surfaces are constituted of single row of metallic rods. The beam angle of this structure as a function of frequency is given by the equation θ s =arcos(ϕ r c/(4πfD)), where ϕ r is the phase of the reflection coefficient of the cavity surfaces. In fig. 2a,θ s is plotted versus the frequency. We present in fig. 2b-g, the radiation patterns for the frequencies corresponding to the steered beams θ s = 10 °, 20 °, 30 °, 40 ° and 50 °. For the steered beam case, the relation between angular and frequency selectivity becomes : Δθ 3dB ≈2(arcos(cosθ s -cos θ s /(2Q))-θ s ).

The second purpose of our communication is to show the effect of multiple layer PBGs on the antenna radiation pattern. Consider the PBG structure 2 (fig. 1b). For D 2 =D, the radiation pattern for broadside beam (fig. 2h) seems to be more directive than the previous one (fig. 2b). For D 2 =2D a "double beam" appears due to the coupling between cavities of the same resonance frequencies (fig. 2i-j). This property may be used for "difference pattern" applications.

Figure 1 :

 1 Figure 1: Geometry of PBG-structures

  H. Boutayeb, K. Mahdjoubi and A.C. Tarot IETR, University of Rennes 1, Bat. 11D, Campus de Beaulieu, 35042 Rennes -France


Walter Riofrio

Sensorial Information and the Roots of Cognition in Evolution

Trying to understand when and how the cognitive phenomena arise in evolution continues being a hard problem of confronting. Another important issue is referring to find the explanatory framework which integrates the different observations and data in neuroscience investigations. These situations lead us to ask a question in regards to whether there are underlying general principles to the so-called neural code: What might the relationship be that is established between the neuronal responses and the sensory signs or signals that these supposedly represent? In fact, one important task is to find the ways in which we will be able to arrive at those explanations that will enable us to understand how living beings put together perceived sensory information as well as how they represent it. In this brief paper, we address some conceptual questions involved in the relationships between sensorial information perceived by brains and its representational capacities. Specially, we propose that it is possible to defend the physical origin of Information. Therefore, we will study the implications to use the information notion as an ascribed concept and its relationships with using this same notion like denoting something in the reality.

Introduction

When we say the brain has the capacity to make some kind of representations, with these we are saying that, the brain produces certain information processes types from the data or signals from the exterior. And following, this processes "some how" produce an integration in such a way that it is generated a coherent and coordinated answer as a results of the neuronal activities.

This representation could be an image, a sound, a flavour, an idea. In other words, we are in front of the so called "binding problem" (Kahneman, Treisman and Gibbs 1992;Ungerleider and Haxby 1994;von der Malsburg 2001von der Malsburg , 2002)).

In this way, one basic problem is to explain the relationship between the actions of interconnected set of cells specialized in receive and transmit ⋅ Walter Riofrio is Associate Professor of Theoretical and Evolutionary Biology at the Neuroscience and Behavior Division, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima-Peru. This version is the first draft of January 2007.

information with the production of some kind of answers mediated by the representational capacity of this cells aggregations.

We found in the brain, the existence of different centres with the task to process certain types of signals (for example, visuals at the moment to observe a table or a book) and we realize that there are many neuronal connections in synchrony (Milner 1974;von der Malsburg 1995;Varela 1995;Kreiter and Singer 1996).

At one moment, it presents a tune between synchronic neural fires in one part of the brain with other brain portions that are activated in synchronic ways.

Until now, we do not know how to find a design -in laboratories and in computational simulations-that would resolve the implications derived to integrally the spatial and temporal coordination of all the processed signals which produce a coherent resultant, as the obstacle identification for us.

We approaches to this problem, with the proposal that the "low level" mental phenomena are not totally explained by virtue of mechanisms, and computations exclusively. In other words, we claim that it is needed to deepening on the information notion, and to connect it with the emergence notion, with the capacity of neurons structuring and with future scaling-developments in evolutionary terms.

Our working hypothesis proposes installing the questions in the most basic mental phenomena. With the final goal, to track until last consequences the origin of these capacities greatly extended in the living realm.

Our research proposal has the central objective to construct a theoretical approach (conceptually and with the possibility to design reliable algorithms), which will open the door to an overall comprehension of the successive steps, for the emergence of mental levels.

Integration of Sensorial Information

an ordinary situation: a person, walking through a park, begins to clap his hands; suddenly, the birds on the grass around him take off in flight. We can ask ourselves, "How did the birds perceive these claps?" Further, if there were another animal in the area, such as a cricket a mouse, how would it perceive them? These situations lead us to ask a question in regards to whether there are underlying general principles to the so-called neural code: What might the relationship be that is established between the neuronal responses and the sensory signs or signals that these supposedly represent?

It is important to understand that the terms "stimulus" and "response" include within them an extremely large group of components, such as the different ways for receiving a determined type of sensory information living beings possess or the various and multiple forms in which this specific type of sensory information flows through a determined group of reception centers (smell, taste, sight, etc.) for that information. A typical case is what happens in the different dynamics that are observed in the predator-prey interaction, for example.

An interesting discussion of these topics is one we find in a recent work on the behavior of bats as they are hunting their prey (Ghose et 2006). It seems that on wide scale evolutionary basis the constant bearing (CB) strategy is the one most often used. This strategy is the optimal way a predator to capture its prey or a moving object, following a straight line or a predictable trajectory (Olberg et al. 2000;Shaffer et al. 2004).

in the case of bats, the authors propose that the most efficient strategy of this type of predator-prey interaction is not the CB but the CATD strategy (constant absolute target direction). This strategy predicts a that would be defined by the absolute direction between the predator and the prey. In their studies, the researchers find that the bat would capture its prey by adjusting the direction of its flight path and its of pursuit. And so, it would consistently maintain the absolute direction to its target throughout the pursuit: "…When the bat converges to (and maintains) the optimal bearing, the absolute direction to the target not change. The CATD strategy produces a trajectory which, from the viewpoint of the target, makes the pursuer ''appear'' stationary against a distant background, and vice-versa." (Ghose et al. 2006, pp. 0006).

In fact, one important task is to find the ways in which we will be able to arrive at those explanations that will enable us to understand how living beings put together perceived sensory information as well as how they represent it.

Emergence of Information

Focusing our attention for a few moments on a controversy that is produced among the consequences that are derived from the laws of quantum physics and the physics of black holes, we have, on one hand, the former, which states that information (in a similar manner to energy) "cannot be created or destroyed." On the other hand, in a black hole, "information cannot escape." This is known as the "black hole information paradox " (Danielsson and Schiffer 1993;Susskind 2003).

It is possible for us to have the following situations: first, we ask for the information that is contained in a determined object, for example, a CD player. Secondly, we wonder about the information that would be needed to produce in a random sort of way somewhere in the universe all the necessary phenomena of physics in order for the parts of a watch to "spontaneously assemble". And, the third situation is one of the possibility of measuring the information content that is necessary for an ant colony to explore the required strategies for detecting, finding, and transporting a source of sugar to their nest that lies some distance away from said source.

We have to ask ourselves if, in these cases, whether the term "information" is being used in the same way. If what we are talking about is the way in which we can formalize the measurement of the information content in these situations, the answer is probably yes.

Nevertheless, it seems that for the case of the ants there are some extras to the notion of information that are not found in the other situations. We can affirm that among the phenomena produced in the ant colony, it must have been possible for them to transmit certain among other so as to be able to produce the coordinated behaviors as a whole that we observed. This is something that we cannot state with certainty in the other two cases. So, it seems that we are faced with two uses of the notion of information; the first use has something to do with the way in which "we ascribe" a certain information content that is susceptible to being treated in formal terms by some suitable information theory for that particular case.

The second case has more to do with the "production of information" that is used by entities, which are adaptive, dynamic systems, and that, likewise, may be susceptible to being treated in formal terms. What difference have we found between these two cases?

A first approximation is to propose that this difference among the uses of the notion of information (in the cases we set out above) is not casual. Instead, it could be revealing a problem that ultimately makes us question the composition and the interaction of the most basic things of the world (Godfrey-Smith 1998;Rouvray and Bonchev 2005).

It might be a problem that establishes the difference between using a notion through ascription (imposed by us for the purpose of deepening the understanding of determined phenomenology) and using this same notion as indicating its existence in physical terms for certain entities of the world.

The second use could be making us understand that the notion of in the world; it is a capacity, a property, or a characteristic of certain things in the world. In other words, the term "information" has a physical reference in reality.

The first use could indicate that some notions (for example, the notion of information) might be susceptible to being largely abstracted and, therefore, used on "a wide-scale basis" to almost anything in the universe.

Hence, the first use (the "wide-scale approach") has its theoretical and applicable legitimacy since we have discovered that it is real. An important consequence that is derived from our earlier reasoning, therefore, is that it might be possible to propose that there was a time when information appeared in the universe, that information had an origin.

The central question within this analysis refers to the causes that have occurred during evolution for the appearance of the production of interpretations (meanings) in the brains of these animals from the sensory information they receive. It would be interesting if we could discover that

biological information (understood in a wider sense) already carries a certain "meaning" (a basic semantic) and is perhaps associated with the molecular processes that generate the biological functions within a network of processes. Thus, it would not seem so illogical to think that the search for the origins of cognition will take us directly to a deepening of the notions of biological information and biological functions as well as to the possible relationships that take place between them.