Two experts from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) give insights how the production of the future can be designed more economical and sustainable.

(De-)centralisation of decisions in global production networks

Multinational companies deal with production processes in various countries by operating global production networks. These production processes are allocated to production plants with different levels of autonomy regarding strategic and operative decisions. Typically, each plant and the whole network are managed by one or more managers who have to deal with a decision overload in their daily business. 50% of their decisions are made in less than 9 minutes and only a small amount of decision tasks are dealt with for more than one hour. To reduce this dilemma, it was found that the ideal distribution of decision autonomy is dependent on the company's strategy and complexity dimensions in global production networks. However, so far there is little evidence on how to better distribute decision autonomy in global production networks in detail. Further, it is not transparent how centrally a global production network should be managed without cutting the capabilities of production plants. This presentation shows a methodology, which examines relevant strategy dimensions and derives guidance on how to distribute decisions in global production networks.

Value Stream Kinematics – Rethinking Production Systems

Companies today have to choose between rigid production lines with high productivity and flexible manufacturing with low efficiency. This conflict of objectives is to be overcome by production with high flexibility and a high degree of automation through the use of robot kinematics in the entire production flow. These robot kinematics will be able to perform various production steps and partly non-standard processes using collaboration and coupling, and also can be frequently and flexibly rearranged in order to respond to an increasing demand for a greater variety of products.