From a Theory of Production to Data-Based Business Models

Abstract

Producing companies are challenged by competition in global markets, in which customers have in general a strong negotiation position. In order to improve their competitive situation, companies constantly attempt to decrease production costs. However on the one hand, it can be observed that companies often do not only have an issue in decreasing their production costs but also in the determination of current production costs as basis for improvements. On the other hand, producing companies face an increasing volume of production data in the course of Industrie 4.0. This data is expected to be potentially usable as additional sales asset. Yet, especially traditional companies do not know how to translate generated production data into incoming cash flows. In order to tackle both named issues, this paper presents both an overview of data-based business models for producing companies and a tool for increasing transparency of production costs in global production networks.