Autor: Jürgen J. Schramm

Facing shorter product life cycles and ever changing customer requirements, production ramp-up processes are becoming one of the most decisive factors to stay in the market. In contrast to the automotive industry, where large scale information systems (IS) and simulation tools allow the build up of digital factories, small and medium sized enterprises (SME) lack resources to satisfy the corresponding organisational and IS-specific requirements. The focus of the research project ELAN is to develop an overall approach to manage production ramp-up adapted to the needs of SME.

Business relation between customer and supplier is less characterized by purchase of investment goods. In terms of specific use tasks the functional utility of investment goods becomes of higher weight shortly. Within the new business relationship supplier becomes full-service-supplier and cus-tomer becomes user, as flexibility and availability are increasing. The definition contracting model used in plant engineering and construction describes the change from purchasing and property to acquisition by use. Due to the fact that it is a complex term, realizable types and physical forms of contracting models are presented below. Based on this, first experiences with contracting models are presented, future significance of contracting models is calculated, possible short-ages are identified as well as the need to act which hinder an implementation of contracting models yet.