Reduction of decision complexity as an enabler for continuous production network design

Abstract

Today, the continuous design of production networks is challenging due to their high complexity and diverging interests of individual sites. In order to increase the efficiency and agility of global producing companies, this paper presents a method that shifts the often-present focus on locations towards a market and production process oriented design approach of production networks. By subdividing the product range into product families, the complexity of decision-making processes is reduced. Subsequently, target conflicts between product families are resolved systematically from an overall corporate view by deriving the smallest possible holistic decision scope. The method was applied to a machine tool manufacturer.