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2012
Conference Paper
Titel
Influencing the long-term workload of manufacturing resources within SME
Abstract
The long-term management of manufacturing resources suffers from volatile sales markets that lead to uneconomic workload. Consequently, investments in manufacturing resources are delayed as long as the payback period is too uncertain and any investment too risky. Especially Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) suffer from this problem due to limited equity capital and openness to risk. Therefore, a high and smooth value-adding workload of manufacturing resources becomes one of the most important strategic aims in order to cover overhead costs and assuring financial liquidity. Reducing the vertical range of manufacture and rising internal flexibility are widely common to achieve these aims and raise value-adding workload of resources. These approaches pursue a strategy of adjustment and are limited by the internal flexibility and changeability of manufacturing resources and their organization. A supplementary long-term approach is to actively increase and smooth the value-adding workload of manufacturing resources by reduced set-up times and decoupling the core competencies as far as possible from specific sales markets. This strategy of influencing workload is implemented within the production program and determined by product development and sales activities. Standardization and modularization within the product range are used as key enablers in order to reduce set-up times and build up manufacturing core competencies. Value networks enable SME to complement these core competences within sales activities to accomplish customers´ needs and escape from volatile markets at the same time. The strategy of influencing workload presented in this paper guides these enablers in a coordinated way towards a high and smooth value-adding workload of core manufacturing resources. The aims are to hedge investments with high capital expenditure and ensure the long-term management of manufacturing resources within SME.