Volatile influences from global markets force companies to be more flexible, sustainable and efficient. The product portfolio grows while sales per product variant decrease and product lifecycles get shorter. That means frequent changes in the production processes and resources, which cause high invest-ments and rapid growth in system complexity. Hence, robust production sys-tems are needed, which are well prepared to operate in a volatile environment. Designing robust production systems often fails because of the deficient basis of decision-making about flexibility or standardization strategies. We present a method to design robust production systems, using demand-oriented flexibilities. Particular emphasis is on the ability to directly integrate the method in a produc-tion planner’s daily work.     «

Volatile influences from global markets force companies to be more flexible, sustainable and efficient. The product portfolio grows while sales per product variant decrease and product lifecycles get shorter. That means frequent changes in the production processes and resources, which cause high invest-ments and rapid growth in system complexity. Hence, robust production sys-tems are needed, which are well prepared to operate in a volatile environment. Designing robust production systems often f...     »