scope:

Introduction

Today's fast-changing global markets and decreasing product lifecycles are forcing a philosophical shift in manufacturing industries. The approach to manufacturing is quickly moving away from pure mass production to mass customization. In order to rise to the challenge of these emerging trends, new plant structures and production facility operation methods are necessary. Future production facilities need to be flexible, adaptable and allow fast, changes all at little cost. Today's flexible production systems already provide the mechanisms for producing different products in the same plant. However this flexibility comes with high cost. First of all such plants have higher initial costs compared to standard plants. But what is even more important, they incorporate a high operational cost because of down-times needed for adapting to new products or because of breakdowns in the plant (e.g., continuous processes with long rampup times). Therefore, means are necessary that provide flexibility without the need to stop the production.