Challenges in production and manufacturing systems platform development for changeable manufacturing

Abstract

Development of platforms for products has proven a successful way to manage and address several challenges related to increasing variety and accelerating product development cycles. Thus, it is natural to assume that platforms may facilitate similar benefits for manufacturing systems, as they are both technical systems. Production and manufacturing systems platform development is, however, still an area of research lacking maturity. Development of platforms in this field comes with a set of challenges not necessarily found in product platform development. Looking towards other fields of research or science may be necessary to address these challenges. This paper aims to study challenges related to production and manufacturing systems platform development and describe how these have been addressed. It does so through an evolving case study based on four projects with an industrial collaborator. This leads to setting the stage for future research on production platforms.