Adequate and economic factory transformability and

Authors: Peter Nyhuis Tobias Heinen Michael Brieke

Publish Date: 2007/12/19

Volume: 19, Issue: 3, Pages: 286-307

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Abstract

Objectiveoriented factory planning is a prerequisite for the economic operation of a factory As intensive discussions in the literature as well as practical findings in factories over the years show transformability and logistics are among the key objectives of a factory It is striking however that both objectives have not so far been related to each other Based on these findings a method for evaluating the actual as well as the target transformability of a factory has been developed It allows the user to assess whether the factory possesses adequate and economic transformability In order to make the method more manageable for users in practice a software tool is presented and a benchmarking has been derived from the data collected by evaluating factory transformability In addition it has been found that transformability can influence logistics A procedure will be presented that allows major means of adjustment to be found that improve the logistics objectives of a factory by using transformability Finally the outlook for future developments is discussed

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