Digital Lifecycle Management

„Go digital or go home”

Deeply rooted in the CONTACT DNA lies the aspiration to constantly optimize the digitalization of processes along the lifecycle to take data management and networking to a new level. With CONTACT Research, we pursue the same goal.

We work on strengthening collaboration and interoperability between different systems, organizations, or industries in a sustainable and future-proof way. Our research is focused on use cases along the entire product lifecycle. However, we do not limit ourselves to the established engineering industries, but systematically explore new fields of competence.

Our focus topics are clustered along the strategic triangle of digital sovereignty:

Digitalization strategie
We develop new digitization strategies for various industries to determine and implement different types and degrees of digital transformation.
Digital maturity
We research concepts, methods, and procedure models to increase the digital maturity level concerning the digital availability of data, management of processes, qualification of employees as well as integration of customers, partners, and suppliers
Process patterns
We develop and implement process patterns to increase efficiency through process standardization and automation along the product life cycle.

Within a network of digitization pioneers from academics and industry, we jointly develop new methods and concepts, explore the flexible design of IT infrastructures, and validate these in various fields of industrial application. This brings us a step closer to our goal of digital sovereignty.

Publications

Method for automated structuring of product data and its applications

Adolphy S., Grosser H., Kirsch L., Stark R. (2015). Method for automated structuring of product data and its applications; The Fourth International Conference on Through-life Engineering Services; Procedia CIRP 38, 153 – 158, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212827115008227?via%3Dihub

PLM- and Microservice-Based Integration of MBSE and System Simulation for Federated Continuous Engineering

Binder, B.; Kirsch, L.; Gottschall M. & Bochwitz, T. (2019). PLM- and Microservice-Based Integration of MBSE and System Simulation for Federated Continuous Engineering; NAFEMS World Congress; https://www.nafems.org/publications/resource_center/ep_jun_19_nwc19/

Continuous Engineering: Faster to better products

Kirsch, L.; Binder, B. (2019 ). Continuous Engineering: Faster to better products; Konstruktionspraxis; https://www.contact-software.com/en/media/technical-articles/continuousengineering-fastertobetterproducts

Bisang, U., Brünnhäußer, J., Lünnemann, P., Kirsch, L., & Lindow, K. (2022). Proceedings of the Design Society, 2, 1511–1520. https://doi.org/10.1017/pds.2022.153 • Contract research Fraunhofer IPK Berlin AI@RQM (Fraunhofer IPK, CONTACT Software)

Data Networking for Industrial Data Analysis based...

Eiden, A., Eickhoff, T., Göbel, J. C., Apostolov, C., Savarino, P., & Dickopf, T. (2022). Proceedings of the Design Society, 2, 693–702. https://doi.org/10.1017/pds.2022.71 • Research project AKKORD (CONTACT Software)

Closed-Loop Engineering Approach for Data-Driven P...

Dickopf, T., & Apostolov, C. (2022). Proceedings of the Design Society, 2, 373–382. https://doi.org/10.1017/pds.2022.39 • Research project DizRuPt (CONTACT Software)

Towards Sustainable Systems Reconfiguration by an ...

Forte, S., Dickopf, T., Weber, S., & Göbel, J. C. (2022). Procedia CIRP, 105, 654–659. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2022.02.109 • Contract research TU Kaiserslautern Autonome Baustelle 4.0 (TU Kaiserslautern, CONTACT Software)

Building Bridges: Development of a Redlining Inter...

Seybold, C., Zühlke, J., Wrasse, K. R., & Mantwill, F. (2022). In O. Canciglieri Junior, F. Noël, L. Rivest, & A. Bouras (Hrsg.), Product Lifecycle Management. Green and Blue Technologies to Support Smart and Sustainable Organizations (Bd. 639, S. 373–386). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94335-6_27 • Contract research HSU Hamburg VR-PLM-Integration (HSU Hamburg, CONTACT Software)

Enhancing Product Test Management by Using Digital...

Savarino, P., & Dickopf, T. (2022). In O. Canciglieri Junior, F. Noël, L. Rivest, & A. Bouras (Hrsg.), Product Lifecycle Management. Green and Blue Technologies to Support Smart and Sustainable Organizations (Bd. 640, S. 257–271). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94399-8_19 • Research project AKKORD (CONTATC Software)

System of Systems Lifecycle Engineering Approach ...

Forte, S., Göbel, J. C., & Dickopf, T. (2021). Proceedings of the Design Society, 1, 2911–2920. https://doi.org/10.1017/pds.2021.552 • Contract research TU Kaiserslautern Autonome Baustelle 4.0 (TU Kaiserslautern, CONTACT Software)

Closed-Loop Systems Engineering—Supporting Smart S...

Dickopf, T., Forte, S., Apostolov, C., & Göbel, J. C. (2021). In D. Krob, L. Li, J. Yao, H. Zhang, & X. Zhang (Hrsg.), Complex Systems Design & Management (S. 203–214). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73539-5_16 • Contract research TU Kaiserslautern Autonome Baustelle 4.0 (CONTACT Software, TU Kaiserslautern)

A Holistic System Lifecycle Engineering Approach – Closing the Loop between System Architecture and Digital Twins

Dickopf, T., Apostolov, C., Müller, P., Göbel, J. C., & Forte, S. (2019). Procedia CIRP, 84, 538–544. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2019.04.257 • Contract research TU Kaiserslautern Autonome Baustelle 4.0 (CONTACT Software, TU Kaiserslautern)

Projects

Research Project

SEUS – Smart European Shipbuilding

Research Project

FaBIM – Holistically plan, build, and operate factories with Building Information Modeling

Research Project

BioFusion 4.0: Climate-friendly production, inspired by nature

Research Project

ImPaKT: Evaluate product changes more efficiently

Research Project

High-temperature applications: SLS simulation on t...

Research Project

Electric Drives – Digitally secure autonomous production

Research Project

Wind IO: Increasing plant efficiency with smart systems

Research Project

DizRuPt: Better product planning with industrial analytics