Design Chain – Supply Chain - Management

Researchers:
Dr. Robert Alard, Philipp Bremen, Josef Oehmen

Academic partners:
Technology and Innovation Management, Zhejiang Advanced Manufacturing Institute of the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology

Industrial partners:
Mammut Sports Group AG, maxon motor ag, Mettler-Toledo International Inc., Micronas Semiconductor Holding AG, Micropool GmbH, Pro-Concept Management SA, Schindler Aufzüge AG, Schindler Management Ltd., SIG Combibloc International AG

Funding:
partially financed by CTI Nr. 8353.1 ESPP-ES

Web site:
www.dcscm.ethz.ch

Motivation
Asia, eminently China is becoming more and more a powerhouse in manufacturing, especially for high-volume, low-cost production. This will lead to an increasing bigger importance of the Asian markets from the procurement and manufacturing perspective for Swiss companies. Cost pressure and competitiveness are forcing more and more Swiss and European enterprises to dislocate their high-volume production to Asia, where labor rates are extremely low. For most Swiss companies, especially the SMEs, the production dislocation to Asia poses some major challenges regarding organizational, ICT-related and IPR-related aspects.

Objectives
The aim of the Design Chain - Supply Chain - Management project (DC-SC-M) is to develop a methodology and processes to integrate Asian manufacturing capabilities into the Design and Supply Chain of Swiss Enterprises to enhance their long-term competitiveness in a sustainable manner.