Autor: Benjamin Hirsch

Due to increased customer requirements the product quality has become a precondition for the competitiveness of manufacturers. Fundamental for the production of top-quality products are stable and error-free processes. The basic process configuration takes place during the factory planning. If substantial quality related standards are not taken into account at this time, essential modifications could only be realized during the subsequent factory operations with a significant additional effort. Therefore a methodical approach for the planning of quality supportive factories which early integrates the relevant requests in the planning processes is developed at the Institute of Production Systems and Logistics (IFA) of the Leibniz University of Hannover.

These days, competitive advantages for manufacturing companies can not be achieved by a detached configuration of specific processes but only within an inte-grative configuration of the complete system factory. The deployed technologies and the manufactured products have a significant influence on the configuration of a factory. To allow a better coordination between technology, product and factory planning, an approach for integrated factory coordination has been developed at the Hannover Centre for Production Techno-logy (PZH). This approach is based on the general roadmapping idea and allows the systematisation of the information transfer concerning content and time between factory, technology and product planning.