Adaptability

Changeability has become a buzzword for operations management, especially in German literature. Management of changeability, in contrast, has not yet been considered in practice or in literature sufficiently. The article presents an actors oriented approach for the management of changeability that enables a better composition and maintenance of change potentials in operation sys-tems. Change potentials are the unused abilities and relationships of actors and build up the changeability of an operation system. The management of changeability has to take care of these potentials for using i hemin the change process.

Medium-sized industrial enterprises apply resource planning systems for their business processes. Changing markets require permanent adaptation of these enterprises’ organisational structures and processes to ensure their efficiency and their competitiveness. However, currently applied standard software systems have proven to be insufficiently adaptable. They allow multiple configuration options during implementation and setup, but it is hardly possible to perform configuration changes during the application phase. Therefore software developers will have to focus on adaptable enterprise resource planning systems in future. Beyond the development phase (build time) technological progress caused by changing requirements also has to be synchronised simultaneously by current software releases during the application phase (run time).

In order to put virtual supply chains into practice a suitable option for coordination is necessary. This contribution presents which actors and which processes are required, if the problem will be solved by electronic marketplaces. Finally it will be shown which chances and opportunities are associated with the suggested approach.

The demands on production companies increasingly vary due to unpre-dictable changes. This results in batch production of varying products and shorter life cycles of products and leads to difficulties in controlling the production sequences. In order to maintain optimal production processes the machining systems, including the controllers, must be adapted, when changes get too drastic. Thus autarkic modules with standardised interfaces for mechanical connection, energy, and information are required. As the adaptation process must be manageable und executable in a short time, self-adapting control systems, which adapt themselves depending on the changed machine structure, are needed.

The new Collaborative Research Centre “Autonomous Cooperating Logistic Processes: A Paradigm Shift and its Limitations”, funded by the German Research Foundation, started on January 1st, 2004 at the University of Bremen. The objective of the new Collaborative Research Centre is systematic and broad investigation and application of “autonomy” as a new paradigm for logistic processes. For this, appropriate concepts and models as well as methods and tools are being researched and developed in twelve scientific sub-projects. In a later phase of the Collaborative Research Centre, the results of this research will be transferred into real logistic applications.