Resource-Efficient Production Planning through Flexibility Measurements in Value Creation Systems

For years, manufacturing companies have faced an increasingly complex and rapidly changing market environment which is the result of, if nothing else, higher customer individualization. This particularly concerns SME’s, whose competitiveness is increasingly dependent on the early identification of new customer and market requirements and their ability to dynamically respond to these in an adequate fashion. In order to meet the high standards demanded of the planning quality and planning safety with ever increasing complexity and the continuous reduction of the planning time available, SME-compatible IT technologies are needed for the simulation of complex manufacturing relations. The following article addresses this problem and in-troduces the method set ecoFLEX, which enables the simulation of targeted and dynamic alignment of existing plant structures, resources and value-added processes with new production requirements. Unlike digital factory planning tools, a complete picture of the specific plant situation is not required, as will be illustrated by selected case studies from the medium sized production sector.