The re-configurable enterprise - dynamic behaviour in manufacturing systems

The development in the last few years highlights that fundamental and sustaining changes occur in industry. Globalisation, increasing customer demands, innovation and technology jumps and increasing complexity are signs for these changes. This paper describes a new way to handle these changes. Today's companies need to migrate to re-configurable structures, which fulfil the requirements of adaptability development, management of complexity, robustness and goal-orientation. The concept of the re-configurable enterprise is one way to cope with today's fast turbulent environment. It has been developed by the Fraunhofer- Institute Factory Operation and Automation. The following paper describes three dimensions of the re-configurable enterprise, especially the structur al dimension will be explained in more details.