Variability in Products and Production

Products and production are inherently variable. That is, the products themselves often need to be variable—as in a car plant producing many similar, albeit not identical cars. Such flexibility allows a product to be more easily customizable. We speak of variable products. At the same time, production systems typically need to be flexible in supporting the production of different products. Such flexibility allows for a broader use of production systems, supports lower production volumes while remaining economical, or optimizes production resources to avoid delays. We speak of variable production. This chapter explores variability in products and variability during production where product variability needs to be understood together with its implications on production. Special considerations are products that are consequently used during production and the issue of hardware/software variability, which is mostly handled separately today. We provide examples from an injection molding machine and also discuss open research challenges.