decentralization

The positive benefits of decentralized decisionmaking structures in production systems were already discussed in the 1990s. But it is only in recent years that the technologies required for implementation have reached sufficient market maturity to be able to implement corresponding concepts efficiently. In this way, the units involved can be enabled to participate “intelligently” in processes by means of autonomous technologies. The question of the actors actively involved in decentralised decisionmaking and implementation as well as the concrete design of decentralised production structures is of great importance. This article illustrates the importance of autonomy for decentralised production control and shows which performance actors involved in the process have the necessary capabilities to act autonomously.

The increasing digitization of production is leading to new requirements and an increase in complexity in data management. Data and applications will become even more decentralized in the future, while ensuring data security and data validity. These requirements are difficult to implement with traditional databases. One promising technology is the Blockchain, which has been used in the context of crypto currencies like bitcoins for several years. In this article, the blockchain is presented in an industrial application in the context of a quality data acquisition in assembly.

Horizontal cooperations offer a wide spectrum of possibilities for efficiency improvement within a company. At first, the decisions of the integrated operational transportation planning are presented in order to analyse the collaboration aspects. Next, different possibilities of broadening the introduced problem in terms of collaboration between several autonomous subsidiaries of one company are presented.