Autor: Thomas Sommer-Dittrich

Due to a difficult market situation represented by the world economic and related market crisis and a steady growth of model-variety the automotive industry is facing major challenges: short innovation cycles, increased complexity of production and cost pressures. To respond to these challenges advanced approaches for long-term planning of production systems have to be implemented. This paper presents approaches of plant design utilizing digital factory and shows applications of operations research (OR) for the planning of production systems. The application of OR methods holds significant potential not only for the network planning level but also for supporting strategic decisions on the production system level.

The automotive industry faces substantial challenges: a difficult market environment, increasingly complex technologies and shorter product life cycles characterize the industry. Modularization has been considered a promising remedy to help solving some of these demanding problems. Rewards of the application of modular systems are expected from various different sides. So far, however, its implications for production have rarely been discussed. This paper presents three production concepts for modular pro-ducts and their respective advantages and disadvantages. The integration of the production perspective allows more prudent strategic decisions regarding modularization.