Friday
Industry and research expect that the business environment of manufacturing enterprises will increasingly be characterised by turbulence and complexity. Hence, the challenges for manufacturing companies arise from the need to design and install organisational structures and technical solutions that can quickly and economically react to unpredictable boundary conditions. In addition to the changeability of internal processes, agile configurations of supply chains and co-operation networks are necessary to cope with the market requirements of the future. The availability of solutions that go beyond flexibility will thus be decisive for the competitiveness of enterprises.
Changeability, as the potential to effectively and efficiently cope with unpredictable events, even beyond the planned corridors of flexibility, is thus viewed as the competitive lever for manufacturing enterprises. The research in the field of Changeable Production focuses on developing methods and tools for the design of factory resources and the configuration of organizational structures on the plant and network level. The aim is to define ideal solutions, which can successfully cope with changing market requirements in terms of products and demand either pro- or reactively. Additionally, new approaches and measures are needed in order to identify the appropriate time for change, to correctly manage the change process and to evaluate the resulting effects and value of changeability.
As the different aspects of changeability cannot be fully accomplished by research focusing solely on technical or organisational solutions, Virtual Production is viewed as an integrator between these foci. The methods of Virtual Production allow integrated experimentation, evaluation and control of production processes and facilities by means of digital models along the entire life cycle of products and production systems. Thus, the implementation of changeable solutions must be supported by customized digital planning and simulation tools.
An efficient interaction between Changeable and Virtual Production is consequently the key for creating sustainable fast reacting and adaptable business structures in order to face the future turbulent market environment.
Research papers and experience reports in all areas of Changeable and Virtual Production are invited to participate. The conference topics are organised into four thematic groups and include, but are not limited to:
Factory and Supply Chain Design and Controlling:
- Reconfigurable and Agile Factory and
Supply Chain Design
- Modelling and Simulation of Reconfigurable
Factories and Supply Chains
- Implementation of Reconfigurable
Manufacturing and Assembly Systems
- Logistics, Material Flow and Storage
- Data Process Management and Handling
Product Development and Production Planning:
- Changeability in Product Development
- Processes for Reconfigurable Pro